Type Journeys

Three designers share their stories and the lessons they've learned through the stages of their type journeys. Moderated by Andrea Rodriguez RGD

Moderated by Andrea Rodriguez RGD

Presentations

Crafting expressive type, letter by letter by Cyla Costa
Cyla will share insights into her journey in typography, from her background in graphic design in southern Brazil to her evolution as a lettering artist and type designer. She will present key projects that showcase her creative approach, offering a glimpse into her design process. Additionally, she will explore the value of authorship in design and the role of expressiveness in typography, highlighting how these elements shape unique and impactful visual identities.

Cyla Costa is a graphic and type designer born from the complex mix of cultures that is Brazil. With 20 years of experience in design and typography, she has become a national and international reference in her field. Her studio, based in Curitiba, serves clients worldwide. Known for its vibrant color palettes and visual versatility, her work has been widely awarded at festivals such as the Latin American Design Awards, Brazilian Design Awards, Brazilian Design Biennial, Communication Arts, and the Type Directors Club.

Human in Type presented by Maria Doreuli
What we design today started with what we wrote by hand. But we write less and less—and calligraphy is becoming rare in design education, not to mention cursive in schools. Maria won’t pretend to know what comes next, but she wants to share how working with her hands supports her creative practice, and why she believes stepping out of the digital environment matters.

Maria Doreuli is a type designer and the founder of Contrast Foundry, a typeface design studio based in San Francisco. Her projects, ranging from traditional to experimental and from self-initiated to commercial, have been honored with numerous international awards, including Communication Arts, Morisawa, Red Dot and the Type Directors Club (New York).

A Typographic Dialogue with Adrian Frutiger presented by Oded Ezer

What happens when Oded Ezer takes the design language of Adrian Frutiger—one of the most iconic modernist type designers—and try to speak it in Hebrew? In this talk, Oded will walk you through a series of typographic experiments that reimagine Frutiger’s early fonts, from Ondine to Univers, through the lens of Hebrew letterforms. We’ll explore how modular systems, broad-pen calligraphy and historical scripts like Uncial and Ashkenazi styles can be transformed into a meaningful cross-cultural design conversation. It’s not about literal translation—it’s about capturing the spirit of the original, in a completely different voice.

Oded Ezer, a Hebrew type designer, experimental typographer and artist, is one of the most innovative and influential figures in contemporary typography and design. For over two decades, he has been pushing the boundaries of typographic expression through a wide range of work spanning experimental design, commercial projects, teaching, and research. Ezer’s groundbreaking work includes award-winning Hebrew typefaces—both commercial and avant-garde—created for companies like Google and Samsung, and institutions such as the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. His conceptual design and forward-looking explorations of typography have also been widely recognized. His work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, LACMA in Los Angeles, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Beyond his international design practice, Ezer is also a professor of design at the Holon Institute of Technology, a researcher, and a lecturer. Throughout his career, he has maintained a deep commitment to expanding the discourse around the role of typography in culture, technology, and communication.