Language Typographies | Vincent Chan
Australian type designer Vincent Chan joins local collaborators to discuss a recent multilingual project featuring text in Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Dharug and Vietnamese.
Vincent Chan’s practice draws on material histories and the cultural meaning behind letterforms. In this talk, he shares the process of developing a multilingual campaign in collaboration with international type designers and local communities. Panellists will investigate the intersections of language, design and community.
Featuring:
Vincent Chan
Vincent Chan is director of typographic practice Matter of Sorts and founder and type design director of Counter Forms, a platform that champions accessible and diverse type design for a more equitable future. He completed his doctorate in 2021 at Monash Art, Design and Architecture where his research explored alternative models of typographic practice. He has presented at numerous international conferences including Association Typographique Internationale in Antwerp and was granted an Ascender award from the Type Directors Club, one of 10 international winners recognised for ‘expanding the medium of typography’. Chan has developed custom typefaces for Australia Post, National Gallery of Australia, Telstra, MECCA, Melbourne Airport and Powerhouse.
Yumna Kassab
Yumna Kassab is a writer based in Sydney. She is the author of The House of Youssef, Australiana, The Lovers, Politica and The Theory of Everything. Her books have been listed for the Miles Franklin Award, Stella Prize, Qld Literary Awards, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, NSW Literary Awards and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Kassab is the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature and currently writing a fragmentary dictionary of Parramatta.
Professor Jing Han
Professor Jing Han is director of the Institute for Australia and Asian Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University. IAC focuses on promoting and showcasing Asian and Asian Australian arts and cultures in Australia. Jing received her PhD in English Literature from the University of Sydney in 1995. She joined SBS TV Australia in 1996 as a Mandarin subtitler, and from 2006–19 she was the chief subtitler and head of the SBS Subtitling Department. Over the last 23 years, Jing has subtitled more than 300 Chinese films and documentaries. She was the leading subtitler of the Chinese TV show If You Are the One, the longest screening non-English TV series in Australia.
Ivan Muñiz Reed
Ivan Muñiz Reed is senior curator at Powerhouse. His work focuses on sharing stories of local communities and representing the diverse voices of Western Sydney. Before joining Powerhouse, he worked with other leading cultural institutions including KADIST art foundation (San Francisco, USA) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. As an independent curator, he facilitated cross-cultural exhibitions and editorial projects connecting his native Mexico with his adopted Australian home. At Powerhouse, Muñiz Reedis currently developing a range of community-led initiatives exploring language and cultural practices, including moments in waiting, a collaboration with artist Khaled Sabsabi that amplifies stories of local Muslim communities.
