Watch Marta Bernstein defending those ugly typefaces we love

09 Oct / 2019 / Scanner /

“The types cut between 1810 and 1850 represent the worst that has ever been” or maybe not.

Marta Bernstein, one of the founders of CAST digital type foundry and a partner at TM, an architecture and design studio based in Seattle was one of this year's Typographics conference speaker and now her talk which took place in The Great Hall at The Cooper Union on June 15, 2019 is live on Vimeo for all to explore.

Through her research on Italian Nineteenth Century type, Marta Bernstein builds a case in defense of loud, quirky, overly-decorated and extremely lively typefaces and the century that generated them.

“Marta’s talk was one of my favorites at Typographics this year. The content and its presentation are great, and her love for weird typefaces is infectious. I also like her advice to break away from modernism more and embrace design solutions that aren’t necessarily timeless” notes typographer, typeface designer, web designer, typographic consultant, and Fonts In Use cofounder Nick Sherman of her insightful talk streaming online.

Marta Bernstein's true passions are type and typography and they act as common threads of all her projects. Bernstein has a soft spot for 19th Century type, a topic she has been researching for more than ten years.

She collaborates with international companies, several start-ups and public institutions and she has a decade long experience in developing identities across various media, and designing wayfinding and signage systems.

A teacher as well Bernstein is an adjunct professor in Typography at Milan’s Polytechnic, visiting professor in Architecture and Design at University of Navarra and regular lecturer for the Interior Design master at Tongji University, Shanghai. Bernstein has completed her B.Sc. & M.Sc. in Graphic Design at Milan’s Polytechnic and her M.Des in type design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

The live streaming and video recording of Marta Bernstein's “Ugly Fonts” talk were made possible by a generous sponsorship from Google.