alternative typographic histories

Research, Speculation, and Design Beyond the Latin Alphabet

Typography is more than the design of letters. It is a system of encoding, a repository of cultural knowledge, and a reflection of the technologies that shape our world. Throughout history, the evolution of written language has been deeply influenced by the tools and infrastructures that render it, from stone and ink to pixels and code.

Yet the dominant trajectory of typographic technology has been shaped by Western design history and the Latin script. As digital systems evolved (from segmented LED displays to vector-based rendering protocols) non-Latin scripts like Arabic were often required to conform to structural logics not designed for them. In doing so, the expressive, proportional, and modular qualities of those scripts were constrained, reduced, or reinterpreted through incompatible frameworks.

Alternative Typographic Histories is an ongoing body of research developed by xLab to examine, challenge, and expand the dominant narratives of typographic development. It explores speculative timelines, obscured design technologies, and future typographic potentials, especially for communities and scripts that have historically existed outside the bounds of Western type design discourse.

As part of the Language as Machine research initiative, xLab’s inquiry into Alternative Typographic Histories expanded into pedagogy and print. A 10-week course developed by Hind Al Saad and Levi Hammett was accepted by the School for Poetic Computation and delivered remotely to over 20 students in the summer of 2023.

The course examined unconventional typographic systems, speculative design strategies, and global script histories. Students from across the world explored topics including Incan Quipu systems, ancient Greek curse tablets, the Indigenous Filipino Baybayin script, and Mayan Unicode encoding proposals.

To preserve and share this work, xLab published a book documenting the research that resulted from the course. The publication reflects xLab’s commitment to design as research, publishing as pedagogy, and typographic systems as tools of cultural continuity.