Thai Type Tourist

The population of Thailand is around 70 million people, 11 of them living in Bangkok alone.

Thailand is home to 71 living languages. The 2014 Ethnologue country report lists one national language (Thai), one educational language (Isan), 27 developing languages, 18 vigorous languages, 17 threatened languages, and 7 dying languages.

“Thailand has experienced the gravitational pull of Europe over the agitations to do with becoming ‘modern’. Yet, it has never been formally colonised” by Rachel V. Harrison and Peter A. Jackson.

'Chiang Mai' in orange script lettering

On July 19th, my partner and I moved to Thailand for one month while working remotely.
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How to find your inner compass as a lettering artist

Recently, Dominique Falla asked me to be part of Typism’s new podcast series, and talk about the concept of inner compass. After the recording was done, I realised that the notes I prepared for our interview could be valuable for many designers in the visual communication field, and not only for the ones interested in lettering. Below are my notes for anyone who’d find that useful.

What exactly is an inner compass?

For me, an inner compass is a set of principles to guide you through life and work, and to help you understand what things work and what things don’t work for you.

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Green Fairy Font Release

Green Fairy is a chromatic font family highly ornamented for display purposes.

Green Fairy’s characters have been specifically designed to accommodate its loops and ornaments following a modern typeface structure.

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Type Touring 2018

Living in Australia is awesome but one of the toughest moments during the year is when the “type conference season” starts. If you — like me — suffer of major FOMO and don’t even want to open Twitter for weeks, maybe now is a good time to schedule a trip overseas and make it coincide with your favourite Type Conference! Some of them are listed below:

ISType Mono – Istanbul, TR
February 22, 2018

Typo Day – Mumbai, IN
March 1–3, 2018

Robothon – The Hague, NL
March 8–9, 2018

Type Drives Culture – New York City, US
March 23, 2018
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Remember December: Calligraphy Retreat in France

In August, I was fortunate enough to travel to Saint Antoine l’Abbaye (France) for the third time for a six-day Roman Capitals calligraphy course with Keith Adams.

The retreat started with a presentation of the course and student introductions. As usual, there were students from many different countries and the course was run in French, combined with English, Catalan and Spanish.

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Scared Shitless: Facing fear and getting out of your comfort zone

This is the transcript of my talk at TYPISM Conference on September 30, about facing fear and getting out of your comfort zone. You can watch me losing my shit here, but I wanted to make the written version available for anyone who’d find that useful. Enjoy!

Hola! My name is Maria Montes and I am incredibly honoured to be here and share my journey with all of you.

First of all, thanks to Dominique, George and the entire TYPISM community for your ongoing support, it means the world to me.

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Hidden gems in Melbourne: Renaissance Bookbinding

In 2012 I discovered a great hidden treasure in Fitzroy North called Renaissance Bookbinding.

I walked in the shop and I was absolutely amazed by the fantastic collection of books, printing presses, metal and wood type collections, not to mention the wide knowledge of Nick Doslov, a great professional bookbinder who has been in the business for over thirty years, and whose love and passion for the trade is worthy of everyone’s respect.

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