Type Heroics

‘Printing Types: New Zealand type design since 1870’ is an exhibition on until September 12 at Auckland’s Objectspace featuring the type faces of local designers including Joe Churchward, Kris Sowersby and Jack Yan. This is an important project because as curator Jonty Valentine says “it is remarkable how un-heroic and invisible the history of type design has been here”. The exhibition Valentine says provides “a prompt for type designers here to tell their stories in the  international parlance of their practice but also in a range of our own local accents.” Objectspace director Philip Clarke notes that “‘Printing Types’ is the first exhibition and related publication completely focused on contemporary and  historical New Zealand type design.”