By Amy Papaelias
It’s been a busy month for Alphabettes, a decentralized network supporting women and non-binary individuals in type, typography, and the lettering arts. We began March 2025 questioning whether or not to once again forge ahead with our annual tradition, the 24-Hour Hangout for International Women’s Day. An ill-conceived idea started in 2019, on March 8th at the stroke of midnight, we host a public video chat and keep it going for twenty-four hours straight, across continents and timezones. Some hours are planned with topics or presentations while other hours are more spontaneous and unstructured. This year, we shared in-progress typefaces, went on virtual type walks, marched with hand-lettered signs in Women’s Day protests, shared our collective rage at the geopolitical hellscape, and babbled to each other’s pets, plants, and human babies. From New York to San Francisco to Mumbai to London to Manila to Barcelona to Mexico City to Vancouver to Santiago, it was an exhausting and inspiring day. See you next year (even though we’re never doing it again, wink wink)!
In mid-March, the blog wrapped up 20 font reviews by 10 type designers on their favorite new releases in 2024. The best part? Each post was written in the reviewer’s language of choice and translated into English, featuring articles in Spanish, Catalan, Romanian, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, and Galician. The idea for this series was the brainchild of type designer María Ramos, who has built an impressive spreadsheet of typeface releases designed by women and non-binary designers between 2022–2024. With over 160 fonts included in 2024’s list, let this resource be your answer the next time you hear the tired old excuse that it’s simply too hard to find typefaces by womxn.
Finally, while the Alphabettes blog continues to publish new posts and header submissions, such as Ana Sanikidze’s Georgian script header and process post and Brooke Hull’s custom lettering and “Disrupting Type Canons: Representing Fat Bodies” article, we’re also cooking up something special in the kitchen. Since 2015, the platform has published hundreds of texts, ran a successful, worldwide volunteer mentorship program, and hosted free in-person and online events cheering new and marginalized voices in the industry. We do this with no financial support and guided by principles of lazy consensus, radical spontaneity, friendship, and custom reaction emoji. With our 10th birthday coming up in September 2025, we want to celebrate the big milestone with some, ahem, flavor.Alphabettes Soup: Feminist Approaches to Type features over 75 contributors, including updated and revised blog articles, commissioned essays, interviews, visual histories, the archive of 250 blog headers, and more. The book is also conceived as a potluck type specimen, and will showcase over 100 typefaces designed by women and non-binary individuals. As editor, I am humbled by the generosity, creativity, and general bad-assery of every author, type designer, and collaborator who is helping make this project really simmer. This book is for typography students, design educators, and even the most seasoned type professional. Are you getting sick of the cooking references yet? Grab a spoon because the soup’s on and it’s going to be delicious!
Published by Bikini Books and designed by Tereza Bettinardi (also, designer of the TDC68 annual), Alphabettes Soup is coming together thanks to the generous support of independent type foundries, design studios, and individual donors. In a feminist effort to foster collaboration rather than competition, all sponsors are acknowledged equally, whether they contribute $500 or $5000. Individuals have graciously donated between $20-250 and will also be recognized in the book. But, we still need to raise about $11,000 to bring the soup to boil this year.
As another March wraps up, I feel grateful to be a part of Alphabettes and for how much has changed in the nearly ten years since we started our collective pot-banging. And yet, we must continue the feminist work of championing gender equality in the industry, especially in leadership positions, acknowledging the often ignored historical contributions of women in type, advocating for typographic diversity and type design for global scripts, and collaborating with emerging voices and established organizations, including the Type Directors Club. Although lately it feels like the world has gone mad, communities of care like Alphabettes help remind us that anger mixed with action can be a recipe for building more lucid spaces.
Guest Editorial from our Global Typography Community. Submissions will be accepted soon. Submissions accepted by members.