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Writing and Script by Andrew Robinson

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The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan

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The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs and Pictograms

by Andrew Robinson

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How changing the design canon will change the industry

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Tejada’s ongoing project aims to make graphic design more accessible, he here talks about the importance of changing the narrative both with his students and with the industry

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Figure 12: Sign at a commercial establishment in Dadar, Mumbai. (Malli, 2022)

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Figure 3: Chinese writing Photo by Cherry Lin on Upsplash (Nora, 2023)

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Figure 5: Combining typefaces in the same document (Adobe, n.d.)

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A conversation between design educators Aasawari Kulkarni and Naïma Ben Ayed that explores the struggles and hopes of decolonizing typography.
"Educators In Correspondence: Decolonizing Typography" is a moderated conversation between design educators exploring feminist, decolonial, and anti-racist pedagogies. To create dialogue through difference, each conversation pairs persons in positions from across cultural, geographical, and linguistic contexts.

On June 22, 2022, we will hold a conversation around Decolonizing Typography with Aasawari Kulkarni and Naïma Ben Ayed, who imagine and develop new, locally-centered curricula at the intersection of type, language, and culture. They will discuss their experiences with challenging modernist and Latin-centric type design canon and designing multilingual scripts in India, the SWANA region, and beyond.

Buy Tickets on Eventbrite

Aasawari Kulkarni (she/her) is a graphic designer, writer, and design educator, and she is currently an AICAD teaching fellow at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Rhode Island, U.S.A. Her work explores the intersection of human behavior with culture and design. She holds an MFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art in the U.S.A. and works as a freelance designer. Her former and current clients include Penguin Random House, Center for Craft, and the Visible Voices podcast.

Naïma Ben Ayed (she/her) grew up in France and is of Tunisian heritage. She has been (re)connecting with this heritage through her design practice. She is an independent type and graphic designer working with Arabic and Latin scripts. Her interests are in the borders and spaces in between and how they translate into design forms and ideas. After working for several years in a corporate environment, she began her own practice in 2019. She leads workshops that focus on connecting type design to storytelling, language, and archives. She also takes part in initiatives that contribute to opening up the discipline to broader audiences.

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A conversation between design educators Aasawari Kulkarni and Naïma Ben Ayed that explores the struggles and hopes of decolonizing typography. "Educators In Correspondence: Decolonizing Typography" is a moderated conversation between design educators exploring feminist, decolonial, and anti-racist pedagogies. To create dialogue through difference, each conversation pairs persons in positions from across cultural, geographical, and linguistic contexts.

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Typotheque: Research into the history of the printed form of Devanagari

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The story of Devanagari type from early print to the digital age, as Indian print culture both sparked and responded to intense socio-political change and constant technological innovation.

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Type History Toolkit, Part 2: De-Centering the Latin Letter in Design Education

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Sabiha Basrai recommends globally expansive approaches to studying typography.

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Figure 11: Devanagari Script (Malli, 2022)

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Figure 9: Various writing styles for the Arabic Script (Rahman, n.d.)

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Figure 8: Arabic Script (Lebanese Arabic Institute, 2017)

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Figure 6: Fonts by Women, curated by Ellen Lupton (Adobe Fonts, n.d.)

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Adobe, n.d. Serif vs Sans Serif Fonts & When to Use Which. Available at: https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/design/discover/serif-vs-sans-serif.html [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Adobe Fonts, n.d. Fonts by Women Designers. Available at: https://fonts.adobe.com/collections/fonts-by-women [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Cardona, G. and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024. Devanagari. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Devanagari [Accessed 13 October 2024].

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024. Arabic alphabet. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arabic-alphabet [Accessed 13 October 2024].

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024. Latin alphabet. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Latin-alphabet [Accessed 13 October 2024].

JBI Localization, 2019. Traditional vs. Simplified Characters: A Brief History of Chinese Writing. Available at: https://jbilocalization.com/chinese-traditional-simplified-history/ [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Lebanese Arabic Institute, n.d. The Arabic Alphabet: A Guide to the Phonology and Orthography of MSA and Lebanese Arabic. Available at: https://www.lebanesearabicinstitute.com/arabic-alphabet/ [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Malli, K., 2022. Devanagari – The Makings of a National Character. Typotheque. Available at: https://www.typotheque.com/research/devanagari-the-makings-of-a-national-character [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Nora, 2023. Essential Tips for Learning Chinese as a Beginner. Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@chinesewithnora/essential-tips-for-learning-chinese-as-a-beginner-6e28e9368eb1 [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Olson, D.R. and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024. Chinese writing. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-writing [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Rahman, J., n.d. Various Writing Styles for Arabic Script. [image] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Various-Writing-Styles-for-Arabic-Script-Unpublished-Work-Written-by-Jameel-ur-Rahman_fig2_240771404 [Accessed 13 October 2024].

Vaughan, D. and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024. The World’s 5 Most Commonly Used Writing Systems. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/list/the-worlds-5-most-commonly-used-writing-systems [Accessed 12 October 2024].

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Figure 7: Arabic manuscript, c. 1005. (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024)

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Figure 1: Image showing Traditional vs. Simplified Chinese characters (JBI Localization, 2019).

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Figure 2: Zhenshu calligraphy. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024)

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Figure 4: History of the letter e. (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024)

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Figure 10: Page from a dispersed Bhagavata Purana, c. 1630–50 (Cardona and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024)

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Cardona and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024

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Devanagari - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024

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Arabic alphabet - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024

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Latin alphabet -Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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Olson and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024

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Chinese writing - Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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'Employed by more than 600 million people worldwide, Devanagari is used in nearly 120 languages, including Hindi, Napali and Sanskrit. It consists of 47 principal characters—33 consonants and 14 vowels.'

Vaughan and the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2024)

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'Used by nearly 660 million people across a variety of languages, including Urdu, Pashto and Kurdish, the Arabic script is one of the few that is read from right to left. It dates to about 400 CE.'

Vaughan and the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2024)

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'Chinese characters called logograms by linguists, number in the thousands and are used in numerous languages across Asia, most notably the languages of China and Japan. An estimated 1.34 billion people around the world use the Chinese alphabet—also known as hanzi, kanji or hanja—for written communication. It is considered among the oldest continuously used forms of writing in the world.'

Vaughan and the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2024)

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'The Latin Alphabet is the most widely used script, with nearly 70 percent of the world’s population employing it. It commonly consists of 26 letters and is the basis for the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is used to relate the phonetics of all languages.'

Vaughan and the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2024)