Book Alert: Alphabettes Soup!

Next year, Alphabettes turns 10, and we’re celebrating with a pot-luck book! Alphabettes Soup: Ten Years of Feminist Approaches to Type will be served up — piping hot — in September 2025, published by Bikini Books, a feminist publisher based in Porto. Read all about it here: bikini-books.com/products/alphabettes-soup-2015-2025-ten-years-of-feminist-approaches-to-type

Help us make the Soup!

To date, we’ve raised about half of the total amount we need to bring this book to boil. We still have a long way to go, and this is where we’d love your help! All funds go to the printing and production, as well as offering honorariums to authors. You can also help us spread the word.

➤Are you a company, and would you like to sponsor this book? Reach out at sponsorships@bikini-books.com.

➤Are you an individual who would like to make a donation? 💚 DONATE VIA PAYPAL 💚

All sponsorships and donations will be acknowledged in the book. Every spoonful of your support helps! 🥄😘

Join the Alphabettes Soup Mailing List!

Receive updates on the book’s progress, pre-sale announcements, and invite you to our launch events. Stay tuned for next steps! 🥣😘👌💚

Exhibition: Same Bold Stories? Type Design by Women and Queers in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Same Bold Stories? Type Design by Women and Queers in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Exhibition at the Klingspor Museum, Offenbach am Main, Germany
July 19—November 24, 2024

A Quick Intro

In July, I had the chance to attend the opening of Same Bold Stories?, an exhibition that explores the question: Where are women’s voices in type design that complement the existing history?

While conversations about women in type design are becoming more common, exhibitions on this topic are still pretty rare. That’s why it’s so important to acknowledge and appreciate this effort. The exhibition was developed in collaboration with the Klingspor Museum (Dr. Dorothee Ader, Valerij Ledenev, Tatjana Prenzel), design studio Turbo Type (Laura Brunner, Leonie Martin), and the feminist collective +FEM (Kristina Mukhacheva, Naomi Rado). The opening took place on July 19, and I was lucky to be there. The feedback has been very positive, with media describing it in fitting words like “Fat, brave, and cheeky!” (hr2-Kultur Review) and “Arial, Bold, Times New Roman – Queer and Feminine Font Design” (Deutschlandfunk Kultur Interview). The exhibition runs until November, with various events planned. You can check the details here.

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Shippo: Weaving traditional Japanese pattern into type

I have been fascinated by the ways design layout is governed by a structured grid or set of rules. My curiosity extends to the exploration of typographic designs guided by specific grids. Navigating the delicate balance between creativity and legibility presents a challenge I wanted to tackle.

With my heritage in Japan, I realized that Japanese patterns on textiles consist of different ranges of shapes, which I decided to take inspiration from. One of the patterns is called “shippo” meaning “seven treasures” in Japanese. The Shippo pattern consists of endless circles overlapping each other.

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