After the success of my Women in Type series, I am evolving the output beyond writing and growing the community by doing what I know best — drawing type. This is phase one of a bigger project where I hope to help more women overcome the very high barriers of our patriarchal industry and society, by publishing their work. Say hello to my new collaborative type families: Octavia with Tida Tep, Jobim with Inga Plönnigs, and Hanae with Ayaka Ito.
Teamwork made my life far more fun and interesting in the last few months. The best part? All 3 fonts had very different processes, Jobim started from a sketch I did back in 2019, Hanae was conceived from scratch, and Octavia is Tida's final project at Type@Cooper from 2017. Even better, the people involved have completely different backgrounds. Ayaka Ito is a Japanese creative director specializing in branding and editorial design, for the fields of art, fashion, and beauty. Her refined craftsmanship and attention to detail can 100% be spotted in our collab. Inga Plönnigs is an absolute powerhouse among independent type designers. A Type@Media graduate, based in Berlin, she divides her time between commissioned projects and self-initiated typefaces inspired by history and the vernacular — two concepts that we also worked on Jobim. And Tida Tep is a Cambodian-American art director and educator that stretches her elegant, yet fun designs from tech companies such as Apple and Google to the fashion, lifestyle, and culture magazine Tidal. For Octavia, the idea was to reference titles and end credits from film noir.
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Meet my partners in crime in this crazy new chapter, Ayaka Ito, Inga Plönnigs, and Tida Tep.
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In order to not let the dreadful timeline of developing type families delay the start of this exciting chapter I opted to adopt the "in progress" model, normalized by one of my favorite platforms, FutureFonts. What was first seen as a "risky" idea, now keeps spreading as a new segment of "beta" fonts, and we are here to riff on it — I am launching these projects with the tagline Women in Type on my own website, flaviazim.com. You can help us expand by licensing high-quality fonts for a fraction of what will become their final prices, with free updates as the typeface progresses. Jobim, for example, is launching with 1 style but will reach 48 between weight and width axes, for both up-right and italics. More detailed process posts will come in the form of interviews very soon ;)
Above all, my goal is to ensure women will no longer be written out of the history of type. Never again! Citing Nadine once more "As long as we do not have the space to tell our stories, no one else will. So we need to step up and lead." It's time to show the world what we got and make a mark on the industry. Shoulder to shoulder. Because together we are giants!
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✷ Footnote: If somehow this text impacted or intrigued you, my lines are open. I’ll be very happy to hear your ideas and suggestions… and especially to see all the gold you are sitting on top of. I’ll just ask for a little patience as responses may take time since I’ll be attending the Atypi in Paris next week. And if you’re there, please come say hello.
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