A very special ATypI

Jan Tschichold's corrections

As students were settling into their Halls for Welcome Week and the start of the new academic year, Sunday marked the return of several members of the Typography family from the annual ATypI conference, a highlight in the calendar of international type professionals. Held in Barcelona’s impressive new Museu del Diseny by MBM Arquitectes the conference was especially significant for Typography: to celebrate the award of the Sir Mischa Black Medal to Michael Twyman, the Association invited him to deliver the Keynote lecture on the topic of  “Typography as a university study”. (The image above, of visuals marked up by Tschichold for a facsimile edition of Vespasiano’s 1572 writing manual, is from Michael’s collections – and seen by postgraduates who join his seminars.)

Forty years after the foundation of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication (and a few more since the inception of the original course, in the late 1960s), Michael’s integration of history, theory and practice continues to define typographic education. These ideas have proven not only resilient, but prescient: graphic communication education worldwide is moving towards these ideas, holding Reading as a model for both new courses and institutions realigning their design studies.

Fiona Ross and Michael Twyman

(Above: Fiona Ross and Michael Twyman in Barcelona. Photos by Elena Veguillas)

Reading’s presence at the conference was notable. Eric Kindel and Gerard Unger delivered presentations, as did no less than ten MATD alumni, with two more taking part in panel sessions (Azza Alameddine, Nathalie Dumont, Paul Hunt, William Montrose, Toshi Omagari, Michele Patane, Dan Reynolds, Dan Rhatigan, Alice Savoie, Liron Lavi Turkenich; and Veronika Burian and Nadine Chahine respectively). Fiona Ross co-curated (with the regrettably absent Vaibhav Singh) the exhibition “Making news: type technologies in transition in newspapers across the world”. The selection of items from the Department’s Collections & Archives are a source of fascination and discussion by type designers, and reflect the growth of interest in global scripts.

Making News exhibition

Borna Izadpanah and Behdad Esfahbod reviewing the Urdu section of the exhibition.

ATypI president (and Reading alumnus) José Scaglione’s announcement that ATypI 2015 will take place in São Paulo, the first South American location for the Association, which will bring the conference closer to the substantial community of Brazilian alumni.

Pencil to Pixel travels to NYC

PtPNYC

When the Pencil to Pixel exhibition opened in Wapping last November, visitors were treated to a rare selection of typeface design and type-making objects from the Monotype Archive. The inspiring exhibition was accompanied by a special issue of the Monotype Recorder celebrating the work of Robin Nicholas, and an exceptional special issue of Eye magazine.

Today the exhibition announced the dates and location for its New York City run, in May. The exhibition is supported by the Department (which also claims amongst its alumni the curators of the exhibition).

Whatever Next

Whatever Next

Founded by Camberwell Press‘ creative director, James Edgar, Whatever Next: a discourse in typography is an exhibition and book stemming from a series of conversations that took place in 2011. The discussions are prefaced by four essays, one of which is by Gerry Leonidas. The book will be launched at the Kemistry Gallery on 4 October, with a corresponding exhibition of visual responses to the discussions by contributors. The exhibition will run until 20 October, and is open daily 10:00–18:00, and 11:00–16:00 on Saturdays.

Reading to host New Baxter Society agm

The Department is pleased to be hosting the New Baxter Society’s annual general meeting on Saturday 29 October. This members-only event will commence at 1.30pm with an opportunity to look at the display of Baxter material, followed by talks by Professor Michael Twyman and Martin Andrews. The meeting itself follows at 4pm.

¶ The Baxter process for colour printing by letterpress, patented by George Baxter in 1835, involved an initial metal keyplate and up to 20 wood or metal blocks to apply each individual colour.

Letters to Iceland

World scripts exhibition at ATypI 2011

From a report about the ATypI Reykjavík conference

‘This year’s conference programme included talks on – at the very least – Arabic, Devanagari, Khmer, Korean, Latin, Meeti Mayek, Mongolian, and Tamil scripts. Aside from the annual TDC and TDC² exhibitions that have long been part of the ATypI conferences, this year saw the first World Scripts Exhibition from the collections of the Typography and Graphic Communication department of the University of Reading. Fiona Ross and Alice Savoie curated this fascinating glimpse into the resources available to students and researchers at Reading; many of the items included traveled outside of the archives for the first time in order to be part of this exhibition.’

Celebrate the Festival of Britain

A study day to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary

Do come and join us for a day of celebration and scholarship on Tuesday 20 September 2011. The programme for the day will consist of a variety of short talks by specialists on a rich diversity of topics relating to the Festival.

We’ll be focusing on the Festival’s presentation and graphic design, including a talk by Naomi Games on her father’s design for the symbol. Other topics will include the signage, architecture, reminiscences of festival-goers, and the social context of the time.

An evocative exhibition will be mounted in the department to accompany the talks, including film footage, ephemera, souvenirs, publications and hitherto unpublished photographs.

The study day will start with a welcome at 10.30am and will finish by 5pm.

£60 (includes a buffet lunch – with some festival treats!)   Students £30

Contact Diane Bilbey for more information.