Alpha Beta

Alpha Beta

During the 2022 Spring semester I was invited to teach a class on Greek typeface design to a group of international students on the Master Type Design programme at ECAL. None of the participants had previously worked with or had any familiarity with the Greek alphabet.

The ethics of Western type designers designing so-called ‘non-Latin scripts’ has been much-debated in recent years, including in ‘It’s time to act’, a 2020 article on the Alphabettes blog, and a follow up article in the ECAL publication Aram. The focus of my course was to develop a methodology for understanding and working with letterforms from another culture, and how to seek out experts for collaboration and mentoring.

The students had an entire semester to practice the Greek script (usually in weekly workshops) and a rule was that their new design could not be based on a Latin typeface – they were asked to avoid the conventional Western-centric approach of designing Greek scripts within the traditions and the history of Latin type design. By consciously not matching Greek script with Latin, would the outcome be markedly different and fresher?

The question now was how to familiarise the students with the Greek alphabet. For this part I conducted research during a residency at La Becque, which lead me to three fundamental points:

1. How to teach Greek handwriting.

2. The relationship between Greek handwriting and calligraphy.

3. If there is a relationship between them, is it also the case for other scripts?

I also researched existing resources, including those on Greek type design methodology (teaching and practice) and design courses dedicated to Greek type design.

The students began with some drawing exercises to familiarise themselves with the basic skeleton, forms and rhythm of the script. They experimented with different tools – markers, parallel pens, qalams – to understand the effect of the ductus on the letterforms. They were also given an introduction to the Greek case system, as well as how to correctly typeset accents and punctuation.

After a few days we played a game of attempting to identify the students’ handwriting and letterforms from different samples. This allowed them to learn about the connotations of their styles (age, education, circumstances), and variations in letterform.

In parallel, the students had first-hand access to resources including historical handwritten styles, codices and manuscripts.

Following the first experiments, the students each defined the direction of their project, deciding if they would design a text or display face as their main style. The next step was to recognise the common elements in their drawings and to group the letterforms into a design system.

Following the first experiments, the students each defined the direction of their project, deciding if they would design a text or display face as their main style. The next step was to recognise the common elements in their drawings and to group the letterforms into a design system.

Once their work had reached a clear point of direction they had their first series of talks on the history of Greek typography, alongside an overview of contemporary work. Near the end of the semester the students had the option to extend their main style of Greek into complementary styles. To my surprise, none of the thirteen students chose to expand into Latin. Some of them chose to work on different weights and styles such as display or stencil, or to expand the set into a full, modern Greek character set, with capitals, accents and punctuation. Others chose to connect their designs to scripts from their home countries, such as Arabic and Hebrew.

The final part of the course was a summer school trip to Athens, where they had the opportunity to visit local archives, including the Parliament’s special collection, the National Printing House and the Epigraphic Museum. Local type foundries and design studios also opened up their studios to the students and gave presentations about their work. During the last week of the visit, we attended the 8th ICTVC conference in Thessaloniki, where the students encountered international academics and designers whose main research focus is on Greek typography. Our exploration of the now-familiar Greek script concluded with an exhibition of the students’ work during ICTVC, where they had the chance to present their projects to the general public through specimens, posters and process documents.

Approaching the culture of a foreign script is challenging for both students and teachers. Through our work and teaching, we should always aim to challenge stereotypes and fight for diversity and inclusivity to allow new ideas and methodologies to emerge.