Hispanic Women And Their Typographic Legacy

The future is female, as well as our past and our present, and this certainly applies for the world of graphic design and typeface design. But like what happened with almost every art form out there, it took a while for women to get the recognition they deserve for their talents and their contributions to the culture. Design has been thought out as a male-centered field for years, but the truth is, women have a significant role and they always have, hispanic women to be more exact. Is for this reason, to celebrate the histories and cultures of Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, that the ArtCenter of Design’s Hoffmitz Milken Center of Typography (HCMT) produced a rare but necessary introduction to the heritage of Hispanic women of typography in the form of a printed booklet. Its name says it all: ‘Mujeres Hispanas y Tipografía’.

According to PrintMag, the book “documents the six-week-long Typographer-in-Residence program hosted by the Hoffmitz Milken Center in 2020. It focuses long overdue attention on the talent and contribution of five Hispanic women designers, researchers and educators to the field of graphic design and typography, reflecting on the influences of their individual cultures and histories. The subjects are Sandra García and Dafne Martínez (Colombia and Mexico), Laura Meseguer (Spain), Marina Garone Gravier (Argentina/Mexico), and Jimena Gamio (Peru/Los Angeles)… The impressively produced folio, comprised of four (26 cm x 38 cm) booklets in a split fountain color jacket, shows a high level of craft that pervades the entire project”. A must for any coffee table, that’s for sure. Lavinia Lascaris and Ximena Amaya were chiefly responsible as producers/editors. HMCT is led by Executive Director Gloria Kondrup and Creative Director Simon Johnston. “Trusting our talent and abilities, they gave us free rein to develop our concepts,” Lascaris and Amaya also noted.

There is little no literature on women’s contributions to graphic design and typeface design, especially Latinx women, so Lascaris and Amaya’s work is a precious jewel, an oasis in a desert of what is perceived as a male-driven industry. When asked how the project came to fruition and what ignited the idea, Lavinia and Ximena said: “Each year, the HMCT hosts a Typographer-in-Residence program offering the opportunity to further investigate the importance and relevance of language and typography in the participant’s professional practice or personal research. Following the residency, we produce a catalog that documents their research, design and investigations. In 2020, the COVID-19 protocols forced us to host the residency program remotely. This allowed us to expand it to include more than one resident. Mujeres Hispanas y Tipografía is the documentation of the 2020 Typographer-in-Residence program”. The project was edited into four separate booklets in order to properly showcase the work of the women featured and allow each one of them and their work to shine.

They wanted to pay homage to the influential Hispanic culture of Los Angeles, that was the starting point of the project, but it outgrew that initial conception. They reached out to several Hispanic women designers, educators and artists whose work they were familiar with, keeping in mind that they were looking for diversity of work, as well as areas of interest. The editors, translators, proofreaders, academic researchers, image researcher and production coordinator were all women. With the positive response this project received, we can only hope for many more to come.

Sources:

www.printmag.com