“Man is either a political animal or an outcast.” Typolitic approves.

Recently we came along Typolitic, an awesome, quite new, website which presents some of the best typographic student work from undergraduate design courses around the globe, so that they can gain not only exposure but also criticism by significant professionals of the design industry who carefully express their opinion on each work that matches their stylistic criteria. On top of that they respond in a very explanatory way which cultivates thought and creative dialogue between students and professionals by examining not only the overall outcome but also the deeper meanings of the messages that students are communicating -since each student has to provide a well-explained and justified narrative that includes all the objectives of their projects. At this point we cannot help but wonder: Is this website an attempt to redefine design education and influence the world to encounter works with social or political commitment? Can teaching reinforce political instincts? Aristotle would approve, we encourage. Hopefully there are people out there who clearly consider typography as a social and cultural weapon, as it's strongly related to language and language is the house of being (in case you didn’t remind that to yourself 23 times a day).

It is interesting to see the broad range of projects as well as the way they are approached, especially typographically speaking. Some of them are installations, others animated videos, packagings or printed editions. All are worth noticing and exploring, not only because of their sensitive approach and interesting execution but also because they are filtered with responsibility, reason and values that indicate social concern and thought-provoking intention. And considering that we live in a digital era where massive changes happen so rapidly, in which just a tweet of less than 145 characters can cause havoc, it makes total sense that some people are concerned with creating a medium to express social language. Finally, it’s very encouraging for students to have the chance to engage in such projects that develop their critical thinking.

In typorn, we present you some selected student projects, which are worth exploring through their detailed passage. There are only some images here which we found them in high resolution, please do visit the website though to view all excellent student projects. And who knows? Hopefully someday one of you will be added to this website and get a fascinating feedback. Oh and we have to notice: 90% of the projects use monospace fonts, hooray! (This also verifies our impression that monospace fonts are the new social-awakening fonts?)

By Konstantina Yiannakopoulou