OUGD603 - Brief 07 - Typography Research - Female Typographers in History

As I've chosen to create a typeface inspired by typefaces from underrepresented female typographers in history I started to compile a list of examples by these women to see elements of them that I could use and take inspiration from to create my own and bring them to the forefront of people's attention. For the type specimen, I want the typeface to be bold and in your face, similar to the women's march protests and something that could be used as a bold font in a newspaper or on a protest sign to get people's attention. To showcase the type I'm going to write out quotes from the women's marches and female designers in the industry to raise awareness of the issues surrounding gender disparity in the design industry and others. 

First I compiled a list of female typographers. The book 'Women in Graphic Design' lists six thematic areas of women in the history of Typography.

The first is 'The Early Pioneers of Typography' which included the following women: 

Carol Twombly

Nationality: American
Era: Contemporary
Education: Rhode Island School of Design, Stanford University
Famous Fonts: Trajan, Myriad, Adobe Caslon, Chaparral
Designed for: Adobe
Find Out More: Adobe Type Designers: Carol Twombly

One of the most gifted female designers, who can be said to have influenced the whole of adobe's typeface development.

Elizabeth Collwell

Nationality: American
Era: Contemporary
Education: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Famous Fonts: Colwell Handletter
Designed for: American Type Foundry 
Find Out More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Colwell

Veronika Burian

Nationality: Prague 
Era: Post Modern
Education: Studied Industrial Design in Munich
Famous Fonts: Tondo, Maiola, Crete, Adelle, Bree
Designed for: Myfonts, Type Together 

Margaret Calvert 

Nationality: British
Era: Post Modern
Education: Chelsea College of Arts
Famous Fonts: Calvert
Designed for: British Network Roadways
Find Out More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Calvert

Defined the entire British Network of roadways with her typeface design in the 1960's but was never recognised for her development, not to mention honoured. Any attempts to research this topic yielded results for her design partner Jock Kinneir.

Freda Sack

Nationality: British
Era: Post Modern
Education: Maidstone College of Art

Famous Fonts: Yellow Pages Directory Font, NAtWest
Designed for: Lynotype, Letraset, The Foundry, Types Ltd, British Gas, NatWest

Veronica Elsner

Nationality: German
Era: 1970s - Onwards
Education: University of Hamburg 

Famous Fonts: EF Eurosans, Alternate Gothic, Meier Kapitalis
Designed for: IKARUS

Rosmari Tissi

Nationality: Swiss
Era: 1937s - Onwards
Education: Kunstgewerbeschule Zurich (school of arts and crafts) 

Famous Fonts: Sinaloa 
Designed for: Neu Grafik , O&T

Gudrun Zapf-Hesse

Nationality: German
Era: Born 1918
Education: Bauer Type Foundry

Famous Fonts: Carmina,Diotima, Smaragd, Chrisitana, Colombine.
Designed for: Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt

She was the second woman to receive the prestigious Frederic W. Goudy Award. 

Rosmary Sassoon

Nationality: British
Era: Born 1931
Education: Department of Typography and Graphic Communication University of Reading

Famous Fonts: Sassoon family of tyoefaces
Designed for: Published a number of works, Typefaces used around the world to help children learn to read. 

The second group is 'The invisible ones'. They most notably worked during the brief flourishing of digital typeface designs in the 1970's and 1980's, gaining a level of recognition at the time but then fell by the wayside and were utterly forgotten. 

Linnea Lundquist

Nationality: American
Era: -
Education: -

Famous Fonts: Sweet Gothic, Sweet Upright Script 

Barbara Lind

Nationality: -
Era: -
Education: -

Famous Fonts: Poplar, Madrone, Cottonwood
Designed for: -

Kim Buker

Nationality: -
Era: -
Education: -

Famous Fonts: Birch, Ponderosa, Rosewood, Zebrawood, 
Designed for: -

Laurie Szujewska

Nationality: American
Era: Contemporary
Education: Center for Book Arts, Yale School of Art

Famous Fonts: Adobe Original Type Specimens book, Giddyup 
Designed for: Roulette, New Music Organisation, Type Division of Adobe Systems
Find Out More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Colwell

The next group are named the 'Enablers'. They managed some of the industries largest firms with efficiency and long-term success. That said the prime benefactories of their success were men, as the percentage of women at these companies did not show any significtn increase during their tenure. Individuals include: 

Joan Spiekerman

Nationality: -
Era: 1931
Education: -

Famous Fonts: FF Meta, 
Designed for: Cofounded font shop 


Cynthia Batty

Nationality: American
Era: born 1956
Education: California College of Arts and Crafts

Famous Fonts: Hiroshige, and ITC Tiepolo , Wile Roman
Designed for: AlphaOmega

Carol Wahler

Nationality: American
Era: Post Modern
Education: -

Famous Fonts: -
Designed for: Type directors Club

The next group is the successful proffessioanals, women who succeeded in the industry and were recognised for their work. Their work has won prizes, sold well and have a strong presence in the typography scene, yet a number of them have (unfairly) aquired a negative reputation - attributed to excessive ambition and the renunciation of harmonious collegial relationships. Members of this group include:

Sybille Hagmann

Nationality: Swiss/American
Era: Post Modern
Education: Basel School of Design

Famous Fonts: Cholla, Odile, Axia, Elido, Kopius
Designed for: Kontour

Verena Gerlach

Nationality: German
Era: Post Modern
Education: Glasgow School of Art and Kunsthochschule Berlin, London College of Printing

Famous Fonts: FF Sizmo, FF Chambers, FF Karbid 

Andrea Tinnes

Nationality: German
Era: Post Modern
Education: University of Applied Sciences, Mainz. 


Famous Fonts: DasDeck, PTL Skopex Gothic, PTL Roletta Sans, WeddingSans, Burg Grotesk
Designed for: Typcuts

Laura Meseguer

Nationality: Spanish
Era: Post Modern
Education: -


Famous Fonts: Qandus, Multi, Rumba, Lalola
Designed for: Type-O-Tonnes, Author of TypoMag
Find Out More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Colwell

Susan Kare

Nationality: American
Era: Post post modern
Education:  Mount Holyoke College, New York University
Famous Fonts: Chicago,Monaco, Geneva, New York, Los Angeles, San Fran Sisco
Designed for: Apple, NeXT, Pinterest, Microsoft, IBM
Find Out More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare

Awards: American Institute of Graphic Arts medal in April 2018

As an undergraduate student in the 1970s, Steve Jobs would occasionally attend calligraphy classes simply out of interest: "I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces," he said, "... about what makes great typography great ... Ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer ... we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography."This was largely due to the groundbreaking work of Susan Kare, who designed Chicago, the first Apple Macintosh typeface, in 1983. Intended for use on-screen in one size only, 12 pixels high, Chicago was robust but exceptionally user-friendly and it remained integral to both the Mac interface and to Apple's identity for over a decade.

Chicago is an object lesson in aesthetic and technological restraint. Working only in pixels on a limited grid, with no references other than the raw computer bitmaps of the time, Kare achieved a well-modulated typeface with subtly contrasting stroke widths and proportional letter spacing, making it easy to read even on the low-resolution Mac computer screen.