Typecon ‘Nice’ 2019

Between August 28th to September 1st I flew to Minneapolis Minnestota to attend the TypeCon2019 conference.  It was an honor to kick off the TypeCon educators forum  presenting a project collaboration facilitated by Kelly Murdoch-Kitt , Denielle Emans and Myself that engaged students at VCUarts Qatar and STAMPS School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Three Designers, Two Continents, One Cause

What happens — typographically speaking — when you meet a total stranger on the other side of the world and dive straight into the deep end together, confronting topics such as gender discrimination and religious persecution from completely different cultural perspectives? Teams of 2–4 introductory-level Typography students (at Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan) addressed various topics of discrimination by co-creating pairs of banners to hang on either side of a light post. In addition to tackling the divides represented in their chosen topics, teams also addressed the physical divide between the two banners. Working together virtually via video-conferencing, messaging, and other digital collaboration tools, teams found ways to navigate challenging topics alongside the hurdles of virtual co-creation. Many teams tried their hand at multilingual copywriting to address a range of sociocultural divides that have personal meaning to them. The results of this experiment in typographic education range from painful to profound. We are excited to share both the work and the perspectives from this unique experience.