“He repeatedly called me “young lady” in front of other collaborators, and initially he had a lot of trouble trusting my abilities, both as a writer and a designer, simply because I was a young woman.”
“I heard a male designer talking about the logic of hiring a male over a female due to the fact that for part of the month women do not function at the same level as at other times, and that if a woman became pregnant then that would mean time out of the workplace, both of which made it seem reasonable to him that hiring a man made more sense.”
“I don’t like being touched by random people, and out of the blue, this guy hugged me. That was uncomfortable enough, but then I felt his erection” (Weissman).
In the type design industry, it is no secret that there are fewer women than men. The industry is not openly discouraging women, in fact, there are more female type design students than ever. Why then the professional inequality? The discussion has picked up significant pace in recent years as women and men noticed that female speakers at type conferences were few and far between. Heated arguments ensued, both identifying and denying the existence of sexism, stereotyping, and biases in the industry. The answer lies nested in complex and sensitive issues. To begin looking at the disparity of women and men in type design, it is necessary to briefly unwind historical and societal influences of sexism as they relate to women as a whole, followed by specific evidence in the type design industry. Several women will be identified for their remarkable contributions to type design with subsequent recommendations encouraging the industry to tackle the issue of gender inequality.
The last 100 years have been progressive for women, creating jobs and new roles outside that of the wife and homemaker. Previously, as Sherill Cohen put it, the traditional.html choices for women were marriage, monasticism, or prostitution. The 13th century view was that women should favor female labors, chastity, and prayer, suppressing any vanity, ambition, and interest in literature (Boardley). In the 16th century, Gutenberg’s printing press introduced a new trade. Wives of printers became invisibly vital to the growing industry. Anna Rugerin is widely considered the first female typographer as the first woman to add her own name to the colophon of a printed book. A wife or sister of a printer could labor in a shop for years, but almost never signed her own name. These women have mainly remained anonymous due to the lack of credit for their work (Boardley).
Gradually, women were no longer discouraged from becoming literate and educated, and were accepted into higher education settings. In 1919, Bauhaus, the famous German design school, accepted women into their ranks. The founder, Walter Gropius, declared the sexes equal. However, he also stated that women thought in two dimensions Church 4 while men thought in three, and the ‘beautiful sex’ should be content with crafts and weaving as their disciplines. The more technical areas of architecture, type, and design were meant for men (Glancey). At present, most people do not uphold the opinion of Walter Gropius.
As women moved towards equality in the western world, they became active in an increasing number of industries. The WEF (World Economic Forum) reports that women’s average earnings in 2016 were approximately half those of men (Elsesser). Though the work of women has historically been valued monetarily less than men, resulting in part in today’s income inequality, there is movement towards balance. It is also important to note that there is a difference between the uncontrolled and controlled gender pay gap as recognized by PayScale. The controlled pay gap takes into account job title, job level, and other important influencers while the uncontrolled pay gap does not. The Arts and Design industries are grouped, showing a 2.7% controlled gender pay gap while the Tech Industry boasts just a 0.6% pay gap (“Gender Pay Gap Ratios…”). The minimal gender pay gap is a significant step forward. However, women continue to be underrepresented in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) fields, including type design.
Gender archetypes today are perpetuated in the development of children. This engrains the idea that some things are for just boys and some things are just for girls. Studies show that girls continue to hold stereotypical views about the jobs that will be available to them later in life (Oksman). Toy sections are clearly divided, pink and blue, princesses and action heroes. These clearly divided aisles reinforce gender cues. In early development, dolls and pretend kitchens are good at teaching kids cognitive sequences of events and early language skills while building blocks teach spatial skills, setting the groundwork for learning math principals (Oksman). Type design is looked at as a very technical skill, parallel to computer science. Out of the students who take the computer science Advanced Placement (AP) test, less twenty percent are female (Oksman). Societal pressures and historical educational choices have led women to view themselves as disadvantaged in technical skills.
Little girls today grow up idolizing Disney princesses as role models. Advertising and mass media continue to place women in traditional stereotypical roles: housewife, seductress, or model. Girls also see incredible female celebrities who have reached success on their own. However, these women are often singing, dancing or became famous because of their body. There are very few highly visible women in STEM fields. “Even as efforts to introduce women to female role models have become increasingly widespread, the proportion of women who pursue computer science and math at the college level has remained stagnant or even decreased over the past few decades” (Cheryan).
Studies and consensus show that there are more professional women than ever. Unfortunately, these women continue to face significant problems once they are employed, specifically in male dominated fields. Obvious sexism has drastically decreased across all industries, replaced by the “soft” war on women (Jaffe). There are two categories of women in the “soft” war. The first is the descriptive stereotype: warm, caring, deferential, emotional, and sensitive. This stereotype makes holding a powerful and traditionalally male role extremely difficult due to a lack of respect. The second category is the prescriptive bias: women who act forcefully and decisively are often labeled as “brusque” or “uncaring”.
"Studies have found that women who succeed in male domains (violating incompetence) are disliked, women who promote themselves (violating modesty) are less hirable, women who negotiate for higher pay (violating passivity) are penalized, and women who express anger (violating warmth) are given lower status" (Jaffe).
Women combat sexual harassment and assault in the workplace in addition to fighting the “soft war”. High profile accused offenders, such as Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Bill Clinton, Mark Foley, Clarence Thomas and more, have brought attention to just how common these occurrences are. Of the women who experience sexual harassment, over half the claims result in no charge. Many women decline to even make a claim in fear that it will negatively impact their career; 65% of women experience sexual harassment by a superior (Chalabi). Harassment can be less recognized in majority male workplaces. The type industry is not exempt from sexual harassment, with twenty four out of thirty four women that Weissman interviewed (for her article “Type Women Talk: Experiences with Sexism”) reporting the experience. There is a general consensus, however, that very few members of the type design industry are openly hostile towards women. It is more likely that those in the male dominated industry do not recognize their own inappropriate comments or stereotypes. There are also many, many supportive men who do not perpetuate sexual harassment or stereotypes, who judge value based on quality of work. As this number of men grows, so too does the number of women in type design.
The world is imperfect and progress can be slow, but the gender gap is closing. At the University of Reading in England, the number of women graduating from the prestigious Typography post-graduate Master’s is steadily increasing (Klugman). In 2013 in the UK, about 62% percent of students studying the creative arts and design were women (Siddall). Those in the industry state that it is clear that there are more women in type design today than ever before. However, the rate of women graduating with expertise in type design is not correlating to the rate of professional female type designers. A 2010 study of the UK design industry revealed that only 40% of designers were women, and even less in type design (Siddall). There is an unspoken expectation that women are very creative and make good print designers, but are not wired to “splice the intricacies of new and constantly changing software and platforms of type design” (Mindiola).
In typography education, students are taught the basics and principles of typography as well as historical typefaces and their designers. These faces include Baskerville, Bodoni, Helvetica, Jenson, Futura, Frutiger, Garamond, Avenir, and more. Nearly every single creator of these typefaces is male, leaving female students wanting for role models they can relate to. The list of masters rarely includes influential female type designers and their work. One explanation is that because there are fewer women in type design, this leads to less visibility. However, there are women who have made significant contributions, such as Carol Twombly, who are still not classified as “type masters” by many.
"When I draw scripts and people call it feminine. Which, to be clear, I do NOT think is a bad thing to be, but it has connotations of being weak and inconsequential, and there are more descriptive words to use. When Doyald Young drew a swashy script, it was called playful or elegant. When Ken Barber draws a swashy script, it’s called a historical study. When I draw a script it’s called feminine, and I don’t think anyone does it on purpose or as an insult, but I wonder why they use that word for me," Anonymous (Weissman).
Much of the vocabulary used to describe type is based in gender stereotypes. It speaks to the fact that women have a more difficult time being taken seriously even when their work is exceptional. Women are expected to design feminine or girly typefaces, which, if designed by a man, would be considered elegant. Typographic education and discourse has led many to question, where are the women of type design?
Recent type conferences have sparked discussions about the gender disparity in typography. At 2015’s TypeCon, there were 52 men speaking and 15 women, at Typo Berlin 2015 there were 61 men and 15 women, and at Typographics 2015 the split was 18-8 (Morley). In 2015 at TypeCon, only 22% of submissions were from women, a decrease from the previous year’s average of 34%. Though number of submissions decreased, the acceptance rate for women has increased to over 50% in the last five years (Weissman). In 2015 at Atypl, 30% of the proposals came from women or groups that involved women. This conference, and conferences in Amsterdam and Barcelona, featured female keynote speakers (Weissman). The number of female keynote speakers is increasing, but remains disproportionate. Many conference organizers have recognized the disparity and are now more actively seeking female participants and keynote speakers. It is important to recognize that with the small number of women in the industry, and even smaller number of highly recognized women, the number of female keynote speakers cannot meaningfully increase. There must first be an influx of deserved recognition for already accomplished designers and an influx of women in the industry overall.
Three women who are historically known as fantastic type designers are Carol Twombly, Zuzana Licko, and Cynthia Hollandsworth Batty. The work of these women continues to gain visibility in type education and design. They have, and continue to, pioneer the frame of thought that good type is simply good type, regardless of who designs it.
Carol Twombly is perhaps the most well known female type designer. She studied at Rhode Island School of Design under Charles Bigelow, the designer of Lucida, Apple Chicago, Apple Geneva, and Wingdings among many other fonts. After receiving a degree in digital typography, she worked at Bigelow & Holmes where her first notable design, the upright italic Mirarae, won the Morisawa Typeface Design Competition in 1984. Twombly went on to join the designers at Adobe in 1989, creating the Charlemagne, Lithos, Trajan, Adobe Caslon, Myriad Pro, Viva, Nueva, and Chaparral typefaces. These heavy hitting typefaces can be seen across print and web design worldwide (Friedlander). Recognition of Twombly as truly influential type designer is growing.
Zuzana Licko is known for co-founding Emigre magazine and the Emigre type foundry. She created an aesthetic that challenged Modernists through the Emigre fonts. These fonts gained mainstream status after being used by The New York Times, ABC, and Nike (eyemagazine). Licko was also one of the first type designers to “exploit the potential of the Apple Macintosh” by using high-style original pixels with early fonts. She created bitmap fonts instead of replicating already adapted forms. Her highly intellectual approach to type design led her to continue creating better bitmap fonts and expanding through the foundry and magazine. The foundry earned the Chrysler Award in 1994, AIGA gold medal in 1997, and Charles Nypels Award for Innovation in Typography in 1998. One of Licko’s most notable typefaces is Mrs. Eaves, based on Baskerville and named after John Baskerville’s lover (“Reputations”).
Cynthia Hollandsworth Batty is a woman who is held in high regard within the type design industry. She studied at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA and managed the department of type design and development at Agfa Compugraphic in Massachusetts. Batty founded AlphaOmega Typography in the 1980s to develop and promote new typeface designs. An active defender of intellectual property rights for typeface designs and software products, she founded the Typeface Design Coalition, and is a past Board Member and Executive Director of the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI). Her most successful typefaces are Hiroshige and ITC Tiepolo (Batty).
Extraordinary women today influencing the industry include Sara Soskolne, Laura Worthington, Pooja Saxena and many, many more. The following highlights of these women and their accomplishments is just a peek into the talented world that is the women of type design.
Sara Soskolne is the Senior Type Designer at Hoefler & Co., one of the most coveted type design jobs in the world according to Adobe Create Magazine. Soskolne is originally from Canada where she began her career in graphic design. She moved to England and earned her Master’s in Type Design from the prolific University of Reading. In the past decade, Soskolne has collaborated on Gotham, Tungsten, and Sentinel10. Her primary focus in type is to promote continuous reading and study linguistics and multiscript languages (Gruendler).
Laura Worthington produces extensive and elaborate typeface families that are used by many graphic designers. According to Adobe Create, she is one of the most prolific type designers today. Worthington grew up in Portland, Oregon where she first became interested in calligraphy and hand lettering. Her roots can be seen in many of her type designs, such as Charcuterie. She does not limit herself, and continues to show her range by designing typefaces such as Sepian (Gruendler).
Pooja Saxena is a master of multi-script type design, working in Gujarati and Latin. Another graduate of the Type Design Master’s at the University of Reading, Saxena immediately became a typographic intern at Apple. She is now based in India where she explores how different languages are formed and interact. Farsan13 is one of her more known multi-script typefaces (Gruendler). Saxena is vital in a new wave of typographic designers who bridge the gap between traditional western letterforms and the more complicated eastern script-based writing.
Why are there significantly more men than there are women in the type design industry? The answer to this loaded question brushes upon the historical roles of women, the gender pay gap, gender education, lack of adequate role models, professional women’s experiences, typographic education, and the lack of representation. Sexism, stereotyping, and biases are still very much present in the type design industry, but there is hope. Hope takes the form of the growing number of women in type design education and the growing number of female type designers. Attitudes and actions of those women and men who currently make up the industry will shape women’s future in type design.
Ignoring the lack of women in the industry and pretending there is no problem is not the answer. At the base level of typographic education, the significant contributions of women in type design should not be excluded. Young women seeking education in graphic design, type design, and typography should know that the professional world of type design is not only made up of men. Successful women of the industry should seek recognition and avoid internalized genderization and pessimism. They should have confidence that the quality of their work is more than enough. There are several communities solely for the women of type including Alphabettes, Typequality, and Gratuitious Type, who offer a sense of pride, mentorship programs, and help women to make important contacts. Both women and men should be vocal about getting more women active in the field. Type design is moving towards equality and things are getting better, but can only continue to do so with the active efforts of both women and men in the type design industry.
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