How many female type designers do you know? I know many and talked to some!

by Yulia Popova (Contributor)

A pioneering appraisal of female typographers, with historical research and interviews with contemporary practitioners This important new book surveys the past and present of women working in typography. The first section looks at the statistics, data and an overview of the field apropos of gender, supplemented with biographies of female type designers that worked in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These women contributed to the industry significantly, but are rarely mentioned in histories of the subject.

The second portion of the volume comprises a series of interviews with 14 women that are either currently working as type designers or are in other ways involved in the field of type Gayaneh Bagdasaryan, Veronika Burian, Maria Doreuli, Louise Fili, Martina Flor, Loraine Furter, Jenna Gesse, Golnar Kat Rahmani, Indra Kupferschmid, Briar Levit, Zuzana Licko, Ana Regidor, Fiona Ross and Carol Wahler.

The final part of the book presents a showcase of typefaces designed by women.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Feminism

319 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Rebecca Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is set up a lot like a dissertation, but gave a really good insight to past and current female type designers, and showed a variety of their opinions regarding sexism and bias in the design and type industries. Learned a lot, and it made me think, but I would have appreciated more cohesion rather than a series of interviews with similar questions.

But now I have a great directory of female designers and their typefaces to use in upcoming projects!

[kari trail · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit too didactic/matter-of-fact for me… a very pragmatic—but still informative—examination of historical female type designers and interviews with contemporary ones. my favorite interview was with loraine furter!

“there exists this stereotype that women design fancy, curly, soft and warm shapes. but i can assure you that a good type designer, whatever gender, can do whatever kind of form and atmosphere. perhaps the style of a typeface relates more the character and signature manner of an individual designer.” (veronika burian)