The Khatt Foundation, curated by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares, is launching the Typographic Matchmaking sequel — Typographic Matchmaking in the City V2.0 project — which focuses on typography’s use in placemaking within an urban context.
Sunday 15 - 22 March 2009 | Bastkia Art Fair 2009 Typographic Installation at Khatt Foundation's House 58 Exhibition of sketches and ideas of the Typographic Matchmaking in the City project
Friday, 20 March 2009, 9pm onwards | Bastkia Art Fair 2009 Presentations and party Event Title: Why we do What we do and How || Typographic Matchmaking 2.0 designers in conversation with local/guest designers and architects.
Saturday, 21 March 2009, 3.30-4.30pm | Art Dubai 2009 The Bidoun Lounge, in the Art Park at Art Dubai (March 18-21, 2009), has a special focus on architecture and design in the UAE on Saturday March 21, 2.30-5pm. 15.30 - 16.15 The Khatt Foundation - Typographic Matchmaking in the City 2.0 Project, with Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès and the TypoMatch 2.0 Designers. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZB__GlHxmU
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, Arabic-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.
The participating designers
TEAM 1 : Project : StoryLine™, Fluidity & Friction
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.
kasheeda is a 3-D typeface designed by Yara Khoury and Melle Hammer as part of the Khatt Foundation project 'Typographic Matchmaking in the City'.
