As we go through life, it seems the days are long but the years are short. Each year we set big goals based on what we’d like to contribute to society and the world of fonts over the next decade, and to close out the year we like to look back and celebrate those achievements.
Type — the standardised approach to communication — is an inherently communal thing. So the best thing each year is always the connections we’ve made and the way we’ve been able to help you in your line of work. If we’ve been able to create something you were able to use, then we feel great about that. 2022 was another great one for us as educators and type designers: several typefaces released, our Building ligatures book celebrating 15 years of creating, another worthy scholarship winner, engaging articles, and giving back to the design and font communities. See what you might have missed in this annual review.
We continued full speed ahead with variable fonts for new releases and adding depth and breadth to our available font catalogue.
Our first 2022 typeface release was Azza Alameddine’s Bree Arabic, a spirited and rhythmic handwriting style, ideal for display use and friendly paragraphs. Bree now speaks in five different scripts while still carrying the same tone and working in digital and printed materials. Sahar Afshar expanded our Portada family with Portada Arabic and Portada Arabic Text, both based on Naskh for clear screen reading and employing variable font technology. The Portada family now includes Latin, Thai, and Arabic, with our upcoming Cyrillic, Pinyin, and Vietnamese script extensions.
Speaking of Cyrillic, Gerard Unger Scholarship winner Anya Danilova’s Rezak and Rezak Cyrillic made a solid debut (in every sense of the word). Rezak is a jaunty, dynamic type family that stretches beyond one specific font category and use. It’s Black and Black Incised styles get all the headlines (literally), but the rest of the family remains invigorating and poised for branding, packaging, poster, and book use.
The summer typeface releases hit an emotional high point with Yorlmar Campos and Martin Sesto’s Atlante family — conventional but excessive in all the best ways. Its 36 styles are packed with more swashes, alternates, and ligatures than a reasonable person would expect, but Atlante was made to overwhelm rather than be reasoned with. Want reasonable? Then grab the two variable fonts and marvel at the small file size (compared to the full static family), even though your style options increase to *infinity*.
Not to be outdone, José Scaglione and Veronika Burian released the three-subfamily Aneto just a few weeks ago and it’s a do-it-all family! Aneto and Aneto Text are aesthetically captivating and applicable to all editorial formats. Aneto Skyline is a display of power in three widths for relevant and reverberating digital and print headlines. This memorable serif family creates flawless screen rendering, warm print production, and smooth readability, and its four variable fonts reduce the file size while giving designers and developers infinite control. More than that, it is the crescendo to our typographic magazine suite — Aneto, Belarius, and Catalpa — by providing the tension and the capabilities needed to set an entire professional magazine.
As an extension to our custom typeface for Ötztal in 2020, we were again commissioned to create an additional headline font for Ötztal Norden Agentur, Austria. They (and we) are very happy with the results!
We’ve seen some fantastic work using our typefaces over the years. Here’s a few that stood out this year.
–Lektorat at MCBW
–Adelle Sans in Dubai’s Spanish Pavilion
–Soleil in Forum Typografie
–Postea & Bely in Hanna Nagel Exhibition catalogue
When we make typefaces, awards are never the goal. But there is certainly something encouraging about being honored by others in the type and design world. Congratulations to our team for all their hard work and creativity!
–Postea won Gold at Indigo awards
–Belarius won Silver at Indigo awards
–Noort Bengali, Selección Clap
–Bree Arabic, Selección Clap
–Atlante, Clap Platinum
–Bely won Gold for Type in Motion at Indigo awards
With each font family, we also released videos to accompany them. Here are Portada Arabic, Rezak, Atlante, and Aneto.
We don’t always create ephemera, but when we do it’s some classy stuff. Our good friend and designer Cesar Sesio designed four posters that are available in our store: Postea, Catalpa, Lektorat, and Molto. We just printed a Rezak poster in stunning silver, yellow, and red, and our newest poster uses our Catalpa wood type for some dual-toned letterpress goodness. We also are wrapping up printing of a new Bree Arabic poster.
In July we announced the winner of the 2022 Gerard Unger Scholarship: Ploquine by Emma Marichal. Emma has given several talks about it already and is steadily working on the unique family.
The sheer amount of giving back to the design and type community that TypeTogether accomplishes is a little overwhelming. Here’s the highlights:
Veronika
–May: “Building ligatures” book presentation at UMPRUM, Prague (together with José)
–August: “Building ligatures book”, behind the scenes at Raabs symposium, tga, Austria
–September: TypeTogether and TypeThursday BCN (talks by Elena Ramirez, Nina Fualhaber, Emma Marichal, and book presentation by José and Veronika)
–October: “Challenges & Solutions” at Mashq conference, Beirut, Lebanon
–November: “Made to fit” at first annual symposium on Branding Public Space, Shanghai, China (online)
–December: “A (non)direct path to type” at Hochschule München, Germany, TypeTalks
Pooja
–April: “How to choose Devanagari Typefaces”, Mumbai Typostammtisch
–May: article on the same topic
–June: “Looking for local attractions” talk about single-screen cinema signage in Delhi
–November: Typography day, presenting some of TypeTogether’s research on primary school handwriting education in the Latin script
–Started a newsletter about design and typography, with a focus on the Indian subcontinent. Sign up at this link.
José
–May: “Building ligatures”, Dublin Technological University, organized by Typography Ireland and TU Dublin, Ireland
–June: “Global typography, global challenges”, Granshan 2022, Munich, Germany
–September: “Tipografía a medida”, Puntopixel conference organised by ADG Córdoba, Argentina.
–September: “Revoluciones tipográficas”, at UNSTA Diseño, Tucumán, Argentina
–October: “The way of global type”, at The way of type conference, China
–November: “Tipografías en la frontera”, with Andreu Balius, at Fundación Historia del Diseño, Barcelona
Azza
–May: “Designing Bree Arabic”, Dublin Technological University
Cecilia
–December: “Type in motion”, DiaTipo São Paulo, Brazil
Roxane
–Workshop Puces Typo, Campus Fonderie de l'Image, with Camille Aznar
Veronika
–NTNU, Gjøvik, Norway, Type design class
–Co-chairwoman of GRANSHAN type design competition 2021/22
–Co-Curator, moderator, and organiser of GRANSHAN Signs of the Times conference and TypeTech MeetUp
–Named jury chair of the upcoming Type Design & Lettering category for the 2023 ADC Annual Awards
Pooja
–D&AD Judges Panel: discussing the best work in typography and type design
José
–Associate lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Lanus. Teaching Oriented Design for the BA in Design and Visual Communication
–Digital lettering workshop at Dublin Technological University
Azza
–Arabic-Latin logo matchmaking workshops at the American University of Beirut
–Tipo.g Barcelona
Josh
–Final critique at Kansas City Art Institute for lettering, calligraphy, and type design
Elena
–Introduced her PhD research at Heritage of London Trust (HOLT)
Cecilia
–December: “Creative process in type in motion”, DiaTipo São Paulo, Brazil
Rabab
–Attended TypeParis as a participant
As usual, we were able to meet as a team in Spain and it was a wonderful opportunity to hang out together and get some work done. Read the full trip summary here.
Each year we choose a couple conferences to sponsor. This year we sponsored Beirut’s Mashq conference and IsType in Istanbul.
We have the best partnerships and this is seen in the work we release. Catch up on these creative powerhouses and their perspective on design.
–Andrea Braccaloni from Leftloft
–Quentin Schmerber
–Anya Danilova
–Wood type with Rafael Neder and Rafael Dietzsch
When makers make, those who aspire to do the same always want to find out about the research, ideas, what worked, and what didn’t work. These articles get into the details of making typefaces.
–Architecting Bree Arabic
–Portada Arabic
–Aneto
–Atlante
–Catalpa
–First-of-its-kind research on Latin-based handwriting education
This look back wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our Building ligatures book and ebook, as it celebrates our 15 years as an independent font foundry and the relationships we’ve made along the way. To further those relationships and as a way of saying thank you, we’ve put a lot of effort into expanding TypeTogether Premier. If you would like to test our typefaces for use in your own work, email us to ask how to join Premier. Since Catalpa was inspired by wood type, we thought the fitting conclusion would be to turn it into real wood type and print a couple posters. See that project here and of course if you purchase any weight of Catalpa by 15 January 2023, we’ll send you one of those posters as a gift. TypeTogether also joined with AUB in Beirut to create a design assignment. The participants enjoyed their time and produced some great work.
Stay tuned for a productive 2023 — we’re releasing new families like 2021 Gerard Unger Scholarship winner Aeroplan, 2022 winner Ploquine, and a host of others. We will continue to publish educational articles, give away our knowledge, and teach at conferences and universities.
And in 2023 (in yet another partnership with Google), TypeTogether will complete the largest, worldwide, first-of-its-kind research into Latin handwriting education, and we’ll release those results in several formats for all who are interested.
But more than anything, our focus is on partnering with you to make your business an even greater success. Every advancement we make, every opinionated or sublime font we create, and every educationally rich article we produce is all meant to make your sphere more influential, branded, positive, and fun. Whether you’re a freelancer just edging into the deep waters of typography or a company of global renown, we value partnerships and helping you move forward. We always have an open door, so reach out at any time and let’s connect. It’s gonna be another great year with TypeTogether!
All our best,
The TypeTogether team
TypeTogether is an indie type foundry committed to excellence in type design with a focus on editorial use. Additionally, TypeTogether creates custom type design for corporate use. We invite you to browse our library of retail fonts or contact us to discuss custom type design projects.
