Following up on last year’s note celebrating International Women’s Day is this one, highlighting the work of another three women who design type.
Veronika Elsner, in the first conversation I ever had with her said straightway, “And I am the first woman to digitize type.” She did it in her home, in the mid-70s, before personal computers—by carefully touching in order a digitization device’s stylus to each of the marked points on a tightly-drawn character sheet. Veronika with her partner Günther Flake are the foundry Elsner+Flake.
Zuzana Licko’s leading charge during the first digital design revolution carves out a deserved spot in the history books, but her work presses on. I credit Zuzana for first introducing me to John Baskerville’s mistress (and later, wife) Sarah Eaves, after whom she names a very popular cut of Baskerville. Pronounce Licko with me—it’s Litchko.
Laura Worthington is my most recent acquaintance of the three, and FontShop’s most recently added library fitting the category of exclusively female-designed type. Laura’s type work draws naturally from her hand work, carefully documenting the feeling of each of the various styles.
And the list goes on, but I’ll stop here. Thanks Tiffany Wardle de Sousa for compiling the list, by the way.
