OUGD603 - Brief 07 - Female Typographers In History Essay

As my underlying theme is a gender disparity in the graphic design industry I wanted to investigate typography and the role and reputation of women in this field. On reading the essay 'Type Persons who happen to be female' by Susanne Dechant a few pertinent points stood out to me on why this issue was so important and why the route I had chosen to go down for my practical was so relevant to the cause. 

Main points taken from the Essay: 

• There are plenty of women in the field of typeface design, they are just either underrepresented, underappreciated, unsupported or unfairly judged for being too ambitious and being successful. 
• There's a stereotype that female type designers tend to work on 'frivolous' fonts or don't have the necessary patience or perseverance to come up with a major typeface design.
• When Sheila Levant De Bretteville's students described a typeface as feminine to describe curves and other characteristics she responds with the question 'Is your language rich enough to describe other words that you're looking at, rather than having to use gender as a referent?'
• Another notion is women are afraid of technology or lack the necessary technical understanding. However, most of the type industry's purely technical requirements were, and still are fulfilled by women. 
• Back in the early 20th century 'Office girls' sat in the monotype workshops and transferred the typeface designs of the type directors to new machines for the production of matrices. 'These women had the most terrific knowledge of the system...the final letterform as we see it was produced by women'. 
• However, typeface design itself is still considered a male domain.
• Women still remain underrepresented at type related conferences and foundries. 
• The aim of this project was to acknowledge to the hundreds of women in type history that weren't given their due.

Full Essay: