Letterspace #45: Ways of Writing
17.04.2024
13.00 - 15.00
De Lange Adem, Ruyschstraat 295, 1091 DX, Amsterdam
Doors open: 19.00 hrs
Start program: 19.30 hrs
Free admission
Type Designer Adrian Frutiger once said “If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape.” While this may be a generally accepted wisdom applied to text typefaces, what if one deliberately decides to make the “spoon” memorable? Type can be more than just a tool, it can question our ways of communication, it can create meaning from within. In the lecture “Ways of Writing,” Tariq Heijboer and François Dey will explore strange, meaningful and sometimes wrong approaches to type.
Ways of Writing will present two very personal associations and understandings of the system of the alphabet. Tariq Heijboer will explain his personal interest in typography and the idea behind Silly Type Foundry (STF). François Dey will talk about one of the typefaces at STF, which he created during shared workshops with patients at a psychiatric hospital in Monthey, Switzerland. Furthermore, he will elaborate on the context in which the typeface was made and why this is important to his work.
Tariq Heijboer
Silly Type Foundry is an initiative of graphic designer Tariq Heijboer, which aims to share unusual and strange typographic projects with a spontaneous character. Starting from Tariq’s own fascination for mistakes within systems of communication, language and alphabets, Silly Type Foundry collects and displays fonts of various makers related to this interest. The types demonstrate an interplay between image and type, the visual and verbal. Most projects at the Silly Type Foundry were initially designed for a specific (art) project and are now revisited and made accessible as a usable font. Tariq Heijboer is based in Amsterdam and studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL) and Pratt Institute (US).
François Dey
François Dey performs experiments on (im)possibility of collaborations. He uses improvisations and forms of documentation to reflect on how situations and actions can feed each other and also affect our perspective. François graduated from the VAV department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and was a fellow at the Jan van Eyck Academie. He is currently working on a book recollecting a residency at Malévoz Quartier Culturel. This project rounds out his participation as a researcher at the LAPS (Lectoraat Art in Public Space) of the Rietveld Academie.