Typographic Matchmaking in the City 2.0

The Typographic Matchmaking in the City V2.0 project will focus on typography’s use in placemaking within an urban context. It will investigate the way that typography can merge with urban design to create public spaces with a unique sense of place (spaces that attract people because they are pleasurable and/or engaging, involve social encounters and immersion in the sights, sounds, and atmosphere of the  locale). Typography will be inspired, on the visual and conceptual level, from specific sites and locations in the city where bilingual (Latin and Arabic) textual communication can be employed to emphasize the  experience of the city. The design teams consisting of Dutch and Arab designers and architects (5 teams  of each 2 graphic/type designers and one architect) will explore this idea of type in the built environment. Intercultural dialogue is scripted within the working process and the project’s source material: (Dutch and Arab/Middle Eastern visual street culture, Atabic-Latin/dual-script lettering systems, built urban environmental design).

The project aims to create expressive type designs and applications, translating culturally-relevant messages (or gestures) into concrete design products (lettering systems and 3D prototypes). The fonts developed will be made from scratch (both the Latin and Arabic) designed at the same time and inspired by each other's script traditions, and will be applied as poetic narratives in the form of participatory public art into the public spaces of two parallel cities: Dubai and Amsterdam.

The design teams consist of carefully "matched" Dutch and Arab/Iranian designers, who are to combine their expertise and creative minds in creating expressive urban and multicultural typography.

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The participating designers

TEAM 1 : Project : StoryLine™, Fluidity & Friction

Max Kisman (Netherlands), Naji El Mir (Lebanon/France), Hisham Youssef (Egypt/UAE)

TEAM 2 : Project : DNA, Typographic Double Helix

Rene Knip (Netherlands), Khajag KJ Apelian (Lebanon/Netherlands), Reza Abedini (Iran/Netherlands),
Jeroen van Erp (Netherlands),

TEAM 3 : Project : Urban Metrics

Erik van Blokland (Netherlands), Pascal Zoghbi (Lebanon),Joumana Al Jabri (Saudi Arabia/Syria/UAE)

TEAM 4 : Project : Local Reference System

Artur Schmal, Wael Morcos (Lebanon), Richard Wagner (Germany/UAE)

TEAM 5 : Project : The Kashida Project

Melle Hammer (Netherlands), Yara Khoury (Lebanon), Stealth: Ana Dzokic (Serbia) & Marc Neelen (Netherlands)

more details will be updated as the project progresses, so stay tuned.

The " Typographic Matchmaking in the City V2.0 " project is generously supported by Fonds BKVB (The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture) and the Mondriaan Foundation.