PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Yvan Martinez, Joshua Trees, and Krister Olsson collectively served as Typographers-in-Residence at Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography (HMCT) in 2020. Martinez and Trees are designers and researchers exploring publishing as a mode of social enquiry, cultural intervention, and public engagement. Olsson is a sculptor and media artist exploring repetition and chance operations, most recently involving AI as a creative tool.

In 2020, Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence program granted Martinez, Trees, and Olsson a Research Award to build Public Foundry, the first type foundry powered by the public using artificial intelligence. Public Foundry will offer a generative typography tool and community archive for designing
and distributing a new generation of open source fonts representing diverse cultures, geographies, and histories.

Although the digital revolution is commonly thought to have democratized the field of typography by making computer fonts publicly available, digital typeface design remains an esoteric practice. At the same time, public lettering and signage are being erased and homogenized through gentrification and globalization. Public Foundry aims to address this paradox by serving as a tool and resource for
collecting, archiving, and constructing letterforms that express and embody the human voice—socially, culturally, and politically: letterforms that express our evolving identities, ideologies, and memories, or revive endangered typographies to perform alternative pasts and speculative futures.

During their HMCT residency, Martinez, Trees, and Olsson developed the first phase of Public Foundry—a case study of invisible letterforms within Los Angeles, resulting in a collection of AI-generated typefaces, a public lecture, and a manifesto.

BOOK INFORMATION

Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in

Number of Pages: 146

Binding Method: Perfect bind

Paper: Mohawk EDD

Typefaces: Akkurat, Editorial New, Standrard

CREDIT INFORMATION

Creative Director: Lavinia Lascaris

Art Director: Ann Suerto

Book Designer: Ann Suerto

Jacket/Cover Designer: Joshua Trees, Yvan Martinez, Krister Olsson

Illustrator:

Photographer: Yvan Martinez

Picture Editor: Ann Suerto

Production Director:

Production Coordinator: Lavinia Lascaris

Production Artist:

Other Credits:

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