About
Workshops with Design Students:
from Edinburgh to Warsaw to Jaipur
Workshops with Design Students
from Edinburgh to Warsaw to Jaipur
What is Typecraft ?
The Typecraft Initiative, develops a range of display typefaces based on the rich crafts and tribal arts of indigenous communities. Our aim is to inspire craftspeople to engage with design and use the typefaces as a way to engage with new audiences and to make them aware of these crafts and the people behind them.
Typecraft Workshop
The Typecraft workshops aims to decolonize and diversify design processes by introducing pluralistic, non-Western philosophies and processes drawn from indigenous crafts communities.
Exposure to Non-Western Design
Processes
• Looking beyond mainstream Western design contexts and aesthetics.
• Exploring alternate, indigenous methodologies that value ornamentation, irregularity and connection with nature over minimalism.
• Encouraging more pluralistic, authentic design solutions inspired by traditional cultures.
Design as a tool for
Social Impact
• Appreciating how design can address socio-political and cultural issues beyond just corporate/commercial problems.
• Sensitizing students to the meaning and cultural importance of crafts in defining a community’s identity, ethos and visual expression.
• Understanding to work equitably with these indigenous craft communities.
Handmaking over
digital tools
• Ability to deconstruct any complex craft or visual system, without digital tools, into its fundamental design elements like shapes, forms, patterns.
• Exploring “Eastern” ways of making directly from memory/mind without outlines or guides.
• Skills to then reconstruct new designs like typefaces by understanding and applying the underlying “system” of that craft’s visual language.
• Improving design fundamentals of students through hands-on making.
02
Stages
01
Exploring the craft communities
Students read and research about indigenous communities and present their findings to the class.
Deconstructing the craft
Analyzing the underlying visual system of the chosen craft, using easy to manipulate materials.
03
Reconstructing through basic forms
Replicating various non typographical forms based on the craft given to each group of students.
04
Developing letterforms
Using previous explorations as a base, students move on to making letterforms using the forms based on the craft.
What does the workshop provides
Ethical Co-Creation
practices
• Understanding of ethical design practices that facilitate co creation between designers and craftspeople, enabling craft communities to preserve their heritage.
• Equipping students with the capacity to collaborate across cultural divides in a fair and compassionate approach.
Enhanced core Visual principles
Ability to deconstruct and reconstruct complex visual systems into designs like typefaces, exploring non- Western approaches for design thinking.
Handmaking Skills
Hands-on skills to manipulate and work with physical materials through processes derived from “Eastern” ways of making.
What is Typecraft?
The Typecraft Initiative, develops a range of display typefaces based on the rich crafts and tribal arts of indigenous communities. Our aim is to inspire craftspeople to engage with design and use the typefaces as a way to engage with new audiences and to make them aware of these crafts and the people behind them.
Typecraft Workshop
The Typecraft workshops aims to decolonize and diversify design processes by introducing pluralistic, non-Western philosophies and processes drawn from indigenous crafts communities.
Exposure to Non-Western Design
Processes
• Looking beyond mainstream Western design contexts and aesthetics.
• Exploring alternate, indigenous methodologies that value ornamentation, irregularity and connection with nature over minimalism.
• Encouraging more pluralistic, authentic design solutions inspired by traditional cultures.
Design as a tool for
Social Impact
• Appreciating how design can address socio-political and cultural issues beyond just corporate/commercial problems.
• Sensitizing students to the meaning and cultural importance of crafts in defining a community’s identity, ethos and visual expression.
• Understanding to work equitably with these indigenous craft communities.
Handmaking over
digital tools
• Ability to deconstruct any complex craft or visual system, without digital tools, into its fundamental design elements like shapes, forms, patterns.
• Exploring “Eastern” ways of making directly from memory/mind without outlines or guides.
• Skills to then reconstruct new designs like typefaces by understanding and applying the underlying “system” of that craft’s visual language.
• Improving design fundamentals of students through hands-on making.
What is
Typecraft ?
The Typecraft Initiative, develops a range of display typefaces based on the rich crafts and tribal arts of indigenous communities. Our aim is to inspire craftspeople to engage with design and use the typefaces as a way to engage with new audiences and to make them aware of these crafts and the people behind them.