Fontstand is a global community of type creators, mostly functioning through online means like the Fontstand app or this news platform. But we are always trying to connect to local audiences, and when the opportunity arose to cooperate with the new Biennale Internazionale Milano project, we jumped at the chance. Thanks to Francesco Dondina, the event organizer, and Matteo Bologna – our friend and a foundry partner – it was a smooth process from the start.
Earlier this year, we opted not to mount another of our big Fontstand conferences in 2024. While the two previous conferences (The Hague in 2022 and Dublin in 2023) each happened in the Fall, we’d always wanted to return to our conference’s original spring dates. We’re planning to organize our next big event in April 2025. Therefore, a mini-conference connected to this Italian festival seemed to be a good fit to fill the gap between our main events.
There are multiple foundry partners for Fontstand in Italy or with Italian connections who were happy to take part in the event in their free time. There’s CAST (Cooperativa Anonima Servizi Tipografici), an extensive type foundry project with many independent collaborators and a member of Fontstand since 2016. We’ve also recently added Zetafonts, an independent type foundry from Florence, to our portfolio. And, of course, Matteo Bologna of muccaTypo, our Italian foundry in New York, is recently actively joining the Italian-type scene, too.
It was a simple choice for the event’s presentations to be in Italian, as this would align with the local audience. We asked our friend Silvana Amato, the President of AGI Italia and a graphic designer and researcher herself, to help us introduce the speakers in Italian. She very kindly agreed.
The afternoon program was divided into two parts. In the opening presentation, Beatrice D’Agostino, a freelance type and graphic designer and teacher who publishes fonts with CAST on Fontstand, presented a method of introducing unconventional parameters for developing ideas for new typefaces. That can be beneficial for experimenting as well as for teaching type design.
Next up was Andrea Amato, art director and type designer at CAST. He gave an inspiring talk about the differences between legibility and readability in type design and the aspects of readability studies vs. typographic tools for presenting the text. Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, the co-founder of Zetafonts, then gave a good overview of some important type design projects, from personal passion to more recent large, international, and multilingual type projects.
After the break – a great chance for friends to chat and have a good time – the second block started with Giulio Galli, a designer, researcher, and type designer who also works with CAST foundry. He gave us the lowdown on the research that’s going on in the lab in Hasselt on how generative AI can influence and change type design in the future. Fortunately, it seems that there’s still a bright future ahead for humanity in type design.
To prove this, the next and last speaker of the day was Matteo Bologna, the founder of muccaTypo. He showed us a type-design-slash-branding project for the Tin Building, an extensive new food marketplace in NYC. For this project, he used only one custom typeface throughout the many venues and sub-brands of the site. The entertaining and colorful presentation was a great way to wrap up the entire event.
For designers and type designers, in-person conferences present the perfect opportunity to meet and share ideas. We’re already looking forward to seeing many of the speakers and members of the audience at our next Fontstand International Conference in the spring of 2025. Stay tuned for our announcement of the place and date!
BIG is a festival curated by @francescodondina and produced by @dondina_associati
