Talks: Typography Theory Practice Conference

Conference at Leeds Beckett University, 25 Oct 2025

Speakers
There were many speakers throughout the day, the ones I attended talks from were Frazer Mudderidge, Ruth Blacksell, Joost Grootens, Roy Chan, Marta Guidotti, Nahal Sheikh, Chloe Motard, Amrit Randhawa, Ane Thon Knutsen, Holger Jacobs




Jacuzzi Smith, Informal, 2022


Ruth Blacksell 
Experimental Publishing: Alternative Networked Cultures & New Archival Initiatives
"Google in paperback form" - The Last Whole Earth Catalog
"Women made book" - The New Women's Survival Catalog
Aspen 4, 1967
Disrupt single leakage reading. Readers able to make choice. Empowering readers. Active readers into co-creators.
Dan Graham
Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 1967
Experimental print into digital publishing
Mindy Seu, Cyber-feminism Index, 2023 - diver users & user journeys, 'living publication in digital form'
The term 'experimental' being separate and lesser to mainstream practice of functionalism.

Joost Grootens, SJG studio
P.73 - Deciphering the Page Number
Elements of Architecture, 2018
Standardisation & predetermined nature of digital
Claims that 80 pages counts as a book and page 73 is crucial. 
Looking at page numbers and where they are on the page, how this design choice impacts the readers experience.
Page numbers being separate to the content or part of. How this can isolate the book from the content.
Digital tools taking over the designers intelligence, less options on where the page numbers go on writing software.
When typesetting was being done by letterpress, the page numbers would naturally sit close to the type block. With digital typesetting, there is more freedom for design.

Roy Chan
Reviving "Hong Kong Type": When archival Chinese movable type becomes contemporary practice
19th Century moveable type, distribution started in Singapore
There are 10 stages for reviving type
Taking images of the type, looking at the craftsmanship
Studying past prints of characters, looking for high quality
New prints made when parts are missing or not high quality
Sharpest print chosen to be used
Comparison of historical prints and considering how different presses and paper impacts the results
Comparing with the metal and wood typecasts
Looking at body, scale, stroke, overshoot, stroke design, centre of gravity, optical centre, open counter, placement of press and throw stroke
Working out what to preserve, what to serif. Using centre of gravity to determine this
When digitising, tracing all 3 forms and combining
Looking for consistency, analysing, comparing with the character collection





Marta Guidotti
The pursuit of reading comfort: the interplay between language diversity and typesetting 
Comfortable reading = flow and rhythm
Balance of black and white in block of text; finding comfort
"Readsearch"
Expectations of the reading audience
Not considering those with reading impairments in research; considered a separate matter

Nahal Sheikh
Soft Scripts: Urdu Typography and the "new ideal" of Postcolonial felinity in 20th century Pakistani Advertising
Urdu - identity for Pakistan
Characteristics of Urdu are soft and flowing
Contrasts between how the script looks with its characteristics and its impact of being used on advertisements and official documents
Cultural mediator, the visually gendered script created a postcolonial ideology for women


Chloe Motard
Designing Tools for Accessibility
Created a typeface to aid accessibility in learning
Made available for all through supplying on a webpage where it can also be modified
Using digital to advantage

Amrit Randhawa
Typecast: Victoria Typography as Visual Identity in British Bhangra
Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, 1856
Digitisation lead to surge of new fonts that have more decorative qualities and so styles from global cultures became integrated into the type used
'Digital DIY font culture'


Ane Thon Knutsen
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Women in Modernist Publishing
"Press is dangerous"
Women came into workforce during industrial revolution and became printers
Women's Printing Society
There was an invisibility of women in print
Virginia Woolf, The Hogarth Press
Laura Riding, Seizin Press
"Hand setting is like sewing"
Anais Nin - unable to establish press due to men, then managed to start Gemor Press

Slide with list of female lead/established print presses;
Anais Non - Germor Press
Virginia Woolf - The Hogarth Press
Laura Riding - Seizin Press
Nancy Cunard - The Hours Press
Dora Marsden - The Freewoman/The Egoist


Text translation;
"THE SEIZIN PRESS
NECESSARY BOOKS.
Our plan is to print necessary books
by various particular people. A necces-
sary book may be either a Trouble or a
No Trouble book. A Trouble book
is necessary trouble taking and trouble
making. A No Trouble book is necces-
-sary no trouble taking and no trouble
making.
1928"


Holger Jacobs
Working with the Unknown: Thoughts on a Parasitic and Symbiotic Typographic Practice
"What are the letters doing when the book is closed?"
Ishikawa Ky
'Printing is parasite on the paper'
Formula = being stuck



End of conference

Quote on screen:
"Texts are half finished.
Their signs rush toward an end point
but past this toward a reader who, they hope,
will complete them...
texts are search for the Other."
- Vilem Flusser, Does Writing Have a Future?