Category → News & Notes

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

photo by Simon Malz

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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Alphabettes Variety Show: June 13, 2024

We’re back for the Alphabettes Variety Show at the TypeLab at Typographics on Thursday, June 13, 2024, 12:45-1:20p EDT! This year some of us will be at 41 Cooper Square, but you’re also welcome to join from the comfort of wherever you are via the livestream or sign up for the TypeLab Zoom link to participate, ask questions, share soup recipes, etc.

Now in its 7th edition, but first back in Cooper Union since 2018, the Variety Show includes live interviews, interactive activities, and fun things. While we can’t guarantee more dance lessons or birthday cakes, we might have a few more surprise up our sleeves. Stay tuned to find out! ⭐️

2024 Variety Show graphic features Tiny Grotesk by Robin Mientjes.

Ceasefire Now! From across the globe

This is a transnational call for solidarity with the Palestinian people and a call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. A ceasefire – not a pause, nor a truce – is not the only demand, but is the first demand. Starting (and expanding) from the 153 countries that have signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; we say Ceasefire Now! If you wish to contribute from a place/in a language that is not yet covered, with your typeface, lettering or calligraphy, head here. To print and post/make placards with the poster head here. This post is updated every other week.

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Second-half of 2023 font releases

Now that 2023 has come and gone, here is the follow-up to our July post, Mid-year Font Releases 2023. Since then, we’ve catalogued 42 additional releases during the year. In alphabettes-ical order:

graphic of various type specimens

ABOVE: Akuto Sans Serif by Bríguida Guerreiro / ALT Riviera by Giulia Boggio / Amboni by Anita Jürgeleit / Baleze Display by Daytona Mess / Bardamu by Anna Remm & Eugene Tantsurin / Brillante by Solenn Bordeau, Jolana Sýkorová & Jérémie Hornus

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Very Cool Thing: Words on Type

The last time Lisa Huang shared a Very Cool Thing on Alphabettes, she published her research on Noto Sans Nüshu script, and the community of women behind it. Two and a half years later, Lisa is back to answer some questions on her newest Very Cool Thing, Words of Type.

Tell us about your new project and Kickstarter campaign!
Words of Type is an encyclopedia of typography, with each term illustrated, described and explained into multiple languages. Each term is explained in concise and straight forward terms to be easily understood, and illustrated by multiple artists to bring visual variety and fun. To bring the various typographic cultures closer together, there will be not only terms from Latin typography, but also those of other writing systems. To give a (literally) better access to typographic knowledge, it’s going to be a website that gives free access to everyone, everywhere. And it will grow and evolve over time, with more languages and words.

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Some of us

Below is a collection of photos of Alphabettes—and a few other colleagues—over the years at various type conferences and other special events. Have other photos to share? Let us know and we can add them here.

Maria Glenda Bellarosa, Andrea Leksen, and Kamile Demir at TypeCon, Portland (USA), July 2024.
Typographics conference, New York, June 2024. Top row: Grendl Löfkvist, Amy Papaelias, Liz DeLuna, Karolina Lach, Elizabeth Carey Smith, June Shin. Bottom row: Marie Otsuka, Joanna Correia, Dyana Weissman.
From left to right, Hendrika Makilya, Karolina Lach, Irina Koryagina, and Amy Papaelias host the Alphabettes Variety Show at Typographics, 2024.
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Mid-year font releases 2023

We have reached a good number of font releases in 2023. Halfway between 2022 and 2024 seems like a good moment for a recap. What happened in the font market in these first six months of 2023? Get ready for a font treatment. Experimental, neutral, bold, colourful, classy, expressive, playful…, there are options for all kinds of type tastes. Explore the list and consider adding some of these new typefaces to your font library.

Samples of Readex Pro, CoFo Sona, CoFo Gothic, SFT Schrifted Sans, and SFT Sushka

Readex Pro by Nadine Chahine, Bonnie Shaver-Troup, Thomas Jockin, Santiago Orozco & Héctor Gómez / CoFo Sona by Liza Rasskazova / CoFo Gothic by Maria Doreuli / SFT Scrhifted Sans and SFT Sushka by Yulia Gonina

Samples of Adelle Sans Korean, Arvana, Dragon, Neutronic Hangeul, and 29LT Zarid Sans HZL

Adelle Sans Korean by Chorong Kim & Changseop Im/ Arvana by Noheul Lee & Loris Olivier / Dragon and Neutronic Hangeul by Minjoo Ham / 29LT Zarid Sans HZL by Lisa Huang & Chuyang Zheng

Samples of Nova Caps, Isard, Foldit, Rosalie, and Min Sans Stencil

Nova Caps by Tania Chacana / Isard by Pilar Cano & Ferran Milan / Foldit by Sophia Tai/ Rosalie by My-Lan Thuong / Min Sans Stencil by TienMin Liao

Samples of Waverse, Ciudadela_LC, Carole Serif, Melindrosa, and Hanae

Waverse by TienMin Liao / Ciudadela_LC by Muk Monsalve / Carole Serif by Lisa Schultz & Matz Gasser / Melindrosa by Flavia Zimbardi / Hanae by Flavia Zimbardi & Ayaka Ito

Samples of Jobim, Octavia, Amberwood, Relais, and Lo-Res Monospaced

Jobim by Flavia Zimbardi & Inga Plönnigs / Octavia by Flavia Zimbardi & Tida Tep / Amberwood by Alanna Munro / Relais by Olivia Wood & Alezander Rütten / Lo-Res Monospaced by Zuzana Licko

Samples of Avril, Borel, Caliste, Ginka, and Scorpione

Avril by Laurene Girbal / Borel by Rosalie Wagner / Caliste by Émilie Rigaud / Ginka by Julie Soudanne / Scorpione by Pauline Fourest

Samples of Aeroplan, Filip, Mikrobe, Baustraße, and Anona

Aeroplan by Nina Faulhaber / Filip and Mikrobe by Elena Schneider / Baustraße by Franziska Weitgruber & Michele Galluzzo / Anona by Joana Correia

Samples of Baga, Loretta Display, Solfa, Joc Display, and Silverknife

Baga by Joana Correia / Loretta Display by Joana Correia & Abel Martins / Solfa by Catarina Vaz & Rui Abreu / Joc Display by Sabina Kipară / Silverknife by Diana Ovezea

Samples of Ceraph, Fuzar, Sixten, V1olet, and Konrad

Ceraph by Emma Piercy / Fuzar by Noheul Lee & Loris Olivier / Sixten by María Ramos & Noel Pretorius / V1olet by Carmen Nácher / Konrad by Martina Meier

Samples of Felicette, Kensington, Neue Swiss, Salad Days, and Socko

Felicette by Lynne Yun & Cris R. Hernández / Kensington by Jen Hood / Neue Swiss by Jen Wagner / Salad Days by Meg Lewis / Socko by Libbie Bischoff

There is a handy spreadsheet that compiles some extra information. It’s a living document, so if you want to see something added to this list, please send a comment.

👏👏👏 Congrats to the designers and engineers behind all these releases. We are looking forward to discovering what’s next in the second half.