Decoding Type

Marion Bisserier, a final year BA Graphic and Media Design student (2019), was invited to present her thesis research at the 4T Design and Design History Society Association 2019 symposium on ‘Design and Authority’ in İzmir, Turkey. Her paper Decoding Type posed the question: ‘To what extent has the invention of Unicode in 1990 served multiculturalism in type design?’ and drew on her investigations into type design history and theory conducted throughout 2018. This research included a range of interviews with leading type designers such as Nadine Chahine and Toshi Omagari, as well as the design writer Ruben Pater, author of The Politics of Design. Marion was the only undergraduate student to present at the conference (which was mostly comprised of PhD students and academic researchers), and her paper raised a number of important questions regarding how type designers might re-evaluate the politics of their practices in today’s globally networked digital environment.

– J.P. Hartnett, Lecturer in Contextual & Theoretical Studies