/ ABOUT
TypeCraft
From Traditions
to Typefaces
Redefining Singapore's Identity Through
Traditional Craft-Generated Typeface
Project TypeCraft was started as an initiative to generate a series of decorative typefaces inspired by the rich crafts and traditional arts of Singapore heritage through community engagement initiatives.
Through this project, it's also a means to bring people together by engaging them in design and craft-making to raise awareness of these gradually vanishing traditional crafts and its heritage.
To those who may have never seen or experienced Singapore's traditional crafts, they often identify crafts as decorations and not something that's functional.
With this initiative that underscores the creation process, we hope to bring the attention to the vast potentials and applications that traditional crafts have in today’s digital world.
Why
Despite being a highly developed country, there’s considerably a lack of typeface choices that truly represent Singapore’s identity where there’s an abundance
of heritage traditional crafts from the 3 biggest culture here; Chinese, Malay
and Indian.
This initiative begins as a way to promote, innovate, archive and celebrate the traditions of the country’s rich intangible heritage. Through the creation of digital typefaces based on traditional craft techniques, we wish to spark possibilities for the crafts to be expanded into diverse contemporary mediums.
How
Using the method of marrying type and traditional craft technique resulted in what we called hand-crafted type.
-
Literature reviews
-
Hands-on workshops
-
Case studies
-
Identifying opportunities and gaps in infusing traditional crafts and processes with type-making
-
Conversation with subject experts from the traditional crafts and type industry
Research
-
Production of selected letterforms
to be part of a collective showcase in digital form
-
Digitisation of selected hand-crafted type into a usable typeface
Design & Prototyping
Exploration/
Experimentation
-
Experimenting with different traditional craft mediums and techniques to create unique letterforms
-
Identify presentation and hand-crafted types for further development for the showcase and prototyping
-
Mentoring from the crafts and type experts
