Type Electives is built by all the people who contribute their time and energy towards supporting students and community members. We thank our faculty, guest speakers, and contributors, and everyone involved.

Schessa Garbutt (they/them) is a Belizean-American creative polymath and founder of <a href="https://www.firebrand.house/">Firebrand Creative</a> House based in Inglewood, CA. Their design practice focuses on brand identity and UI/UX design for social impact initiatives and mission-driven organizations. Garbutt is also an essayist (recently in The Black Experience in Design anthology) and lecturer, speaking on diversifying design history and co-design practices at universities and organizations such as IDEO, SF Design Week, MICA, Where are the Black Designers, and Adobe's Wireframe podcast. Garbutt holds a B.A. in Design from the University of Southern California, and a certificate in Type Design from Type West.

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Schessa Garbutt

Designer & Afrofuturist

Silas Munro (he/they) is a designer, artist, writer, and curator. He is the founder of the LGBTQ+ and minority-owned graphic design studio <a href="https://www.polymode.studio/">Polymode</a> based in Los Angeles and Raleigh that works with clients across cultural spheres. Commissions and collaborations include: The New York Times Magazine, MIT Press, Nike, Airbnb, the Brooklyn Museum, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Art Institute of Chicago, Dia Art Foundation, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Munro is the curator and author of Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest which opened at Letterform Archive in 2022–2023. He was a contributor to W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America and co-authored the first BIPOC-centered design history course, Black Design in America: African Americans and the African Diaspora in GraphicDesign 19–21st Century. Munro is faculty co-chair for the MFA Program in graphic design at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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Silas Munro

Artist, Poet, Graphic Designer, Writer, & Educator

<a href="https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/people/rathna-ramanathan-head-of-college">Rathna Ramanathan</a> (she/they) is a typographer, practice design researcher and academic known for her expertise in intercultural communication and alternative publishing practices. She is Head of Central Saint Martins, Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of the Arts London and a Reader in Intercultural Communication. For the past thirty years, Rathna has led research-driven, intercultural, multi-platform graphic communication design projects primarily in the Global South, all fuelled by a love for, and life-long interest in typography and languages, and a belief in communication as a fundamental human right.

Rathna Ramanathan

Graphic Design, Educator and Researcher

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/estefania_leyva/">Estefanía Leyva</a> (she/her) is a graphic designer, type designer and educator based in Mexico City, specializing in editorial design, typography and type design. She brings a thoughtful, systemic approach to projects that range from books and publication design to digital and environmental graphics for themed experiences and attractions. A 2022 graduate of the Type West Online program at the Letterform Archive, she's passionate about letterforms and explores how typography can enhance user experiences across diverse media. She also teaches typography at the Faculty of Arts and Design (FAD) at UNAM in Mexico. Always eager to learn and share her knowledge, she believes in the transformative power of education and the importance of cultivating a collaborative design community.

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Estefanía Leyva

Estefanía Leyva

Graphic & Type Designer, Educator

<a href="https://www.sadieredwing.com/">Sadie Red Wing</a> (she/her) is a Lakota/Dakota graphic designer and advocate from the Spirit Lake Nation. She received her Master of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University. Her research on cultural revitalization through design tools and strategies created a new demand for tribal competence in graphic design research. Red Wing urges Native American graphic designers to express visual sovereignty in their design work, as well as, encourages academia to include an indigenous perspective in design curriculum. Currently, Red Wing serves as an Assistant Professor at OCAD University (Toronto, ONT).

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Sadie Red Wing Headshot

Sadie Red Wing

Indigenous Graphic Designer & Educator

<a href="http://www.penghuijan.com/">Klio Peng</a> (she/they) is an independent type designer from Taiwan. She completed Mojijuku 文字塾, a one-year Japanese Typeface Design Program instructed by Torinoumi Osamu in Tokyo in 2020, and the Type@Cooper Extended Program in 2023. Klio has been working remotely with Sharp Type since 2021. She enjoys practicing single-stroke sign paintings, drawing Chinese, Japanese, and Latin typefaces, and starting her mornings with meditation, and taking care of plants.

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Klio-Peng Headshot

Klio Peng

Type Designer

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/genramirez">Gen Ramírez</a> (he/him) is a typeface designer, graphic designer, calligrapher and sign-painter from Guadalajara, Mexico. His strong interest and passion for brushes and letterforms developed since a young age as he was taught mastery of sign-painting in his father’s workshop. It later led him to graduate from TypeMedia at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague as well as completing both Type@Cooper Extended program in San Francisco and Condensed in New York. He teaches calligraphy, sign-painting, and type design workshops and leads Letrastica Festival, a conference in Guadalajara. With strong roots in an organic approach to letterforms, his work focuses on embracing both the analog and digital dimensions of design. He loves adding a dash of code in there to spice things up too!

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Gen Ramírez

Typeface Designer, Graphic Designer, Calligrapher, and Sign-Painter

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/typeofshe/">Sandra Morales</a> (she/her) is a Mexican type and graphic designer with a strong interest in history and linguistic diversity. Her passion for letterforms took her to Argentina, where she pursued a Master's in Typography at the University of Buenos Aires. Her graduation project, Malinali, was recognized with the 2024 Gerard Unger Scholarship Merit Award by TypeTogether. In 2021, Sandra was the recipient of The Malee Scholarship, a grant funded by Sharp Type to support women from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups who show a strong commitment to a career in type design. Sandra is also a member of Alphabettes and Times New Woman, communities that promote exchange, support, and visibility for women in disciplines related lettering, calligraphy, and type design.

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Sandra Morales

Type & Graphic Designer

<a href="https://www.jomalinis.com/">Jo Malinis</a> (she/her) is a graphic designer, type designer, and educator from the Philippines. She has worked with local and international businesses, start-ups, and organizations both with her previous studio, Plus63 Design Co., and individually as a freelancer. In 2022, Jo earned a postgraduate certificate from Type West at the Letterform Archive. Currently, Jo is an instructor at the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Fine Arts, teaching Visual Design Communication and Type Design. Jo founded <a href="http://type63.ph/">Type63</a>, an initiative that aims to serve as a platform to celebrate and showcase type design and typography by Filipinos.

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Jo Malinis

<a href="https://www.emmachristinehall.com/">Emma Christine Hall</a> (she/her) is an award-winning designer and educator. She cofounded The Frontispiece in 2015 with Kevin Barrett Kane and currently serves as senior book designer at Zeitgeist, an imprint of Penguin Random House. She has designed books and brands for The University of California Press, Cynren Press, Amazon Publishing, and more. She teaches book design and advanced InDesign at Letterform Archive, Type Electives, Colorado Mesa University, and more.

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Emma Hall Headshot

Emma Hall

Book Designer and Educator

Lauren Williams (she/her) is a Detroit-based designer, researcher, and educator. She works with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and reimagine the ways social and economic systems distribute and exercise power.
Through her creative practice and research, she often investigates Blackness, identity, bodiliness, and social fictions to examine how racism is felt, embodied, and embedded into institutions. Themes of trust and the transformations enabled by social engagement shape both her approaches—collaboration, facilitation, collective production—and the questions she examines surrounding power and oppression, social relations, and social movements. Lauren has taught design + interdisciplinary studios and intensives at the College for Creative Studies, ArtCenter College of Design, CalArts and elsewhere. In the past, she has managed programs and policy aimed at cultivating economic justice at Prosperity Now in DC. Going forward, she's finding ways to align her capacities with revolutionary movements that build toward different socioeconomic systems entirely and usher in new dimensions of power and freedom altogether.
Her work can be found at <a href="http://www.williamslaurenm.com/">williamslaurenm.com</a>.

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Lauren Williams

Designer / Researcher

James Plattner is a designer/artist currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati where he studied art and design, and studied type at Type@Cooper. He works in lettering, type, and branding.

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James Plattner

Designer & Artist

<a href="https://www.keltroughtonstudio.com/">Kel Troughton</a> (he/him) is a type designer, lettering artist, graffiti writer, and educator, living in Oakland CA. He works with Letterform Archive to collect graffiti magazines, drawings, and books. Kel is a co-curator of the exhibition “Subscription to Mischief” at Letterform Archive, showcasing the 1990s graffiti community and the independent publishing that documented it. He started writing graffiti in 2000 and has continued to add letter-based interests ever since. He studied Type design at Type@Cooper West, worked at Monotype, and currently works on freelance type and lettering projects. His company <a href="https://overlaptype.com/">Overlap Type</a> focuses on type design that utilizes ideas from his graffiti experience. In short, Kel is a letter person.

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Kel Troughton

<a href="https://munusshih.com">Munus Shih</a> (he/they) is a Taiwanese Hakka designer, coder, organizer based in NYC, passionate about bringing more critical and diverse perspectives to teaching code. Munus was a fellow for the Processing Foundation, where they contributed to open source projects and helped develop decolonial teaching resources. As an organizer, Munus co-founded <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sponact.xyz">SpOnAcT</a>!, a collective and garden for gender and neuro queers in Taiwan. They’re also a part of NEW INC in the group <a href="https://dutyfreedesign.online/">Duty free</a>, a design collective that explores the liminal space of art, code and solidarity economy.

Munus Shih

Creative Technologist, Designer & Educator

<a href="https://niktari.com/">Nikki Makagiansar</a> (she/her) is a designer, coder, and educator based in New York City who creates type-driven identity systems and websites. Central to her practice is exploring code as a design and art-making tool. Nikki also teaches at Parsons School of Design and Cooper Union. Previously, she was a designer at Pentagram, where she helped develop data-driven and algorithmic identities. Nikki is a co-founder of <a href="https://dutyfreedesign.online/">Duty Free</a>, a design collective that explores the possibilities between art, code, and the solidarity economies. Currently, Duty Free is a member of NEW INC, an art and technology incubator led by the New Museum.

Nikki Makagiansar

Designer, Coder & Educator

<a href="https://bozo.services">Tee Topor</a> (they/them) is a human collaborating with computers and communities. In their art practice, tee experiments with digital materialism and physical space through the combination of computer generated graphics, code, and digital fabrication. They are interested in creating multidimensional interactive experiences that spark conversations around the future of ecological and economic systems, mediated by the advancement, reconstruction and decolonization of technology. Currently, they are an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design and New York University where they teach classes on how to make art for the Internet and for virtual reality applications. They are also an active member within the Illuminator collective, who disrupt urban spaces by projecting large scale political messages of working class people. Additionally they are a studio member at LARPA, a Brooklyn based new media art organizing space. Most recently they co-organize <a href="https://dutyfreedesign.online/">Duty Free</a>, an aspiring worker owned design coop.

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Tee Topor

Artist and Designer 

<a href="https://www.behance.net/TamaraSegura">Tamara Segura</a> (she/her) is a Mexican type designer and letterer. She studied a one-year program in Type Design at Centro University, and continued her education at Type@Cooper Condensed 2021, as well as Type West 2021. She has worked as a graphic, branding and packaging designer at different agencies, while working independently as a type designer and letterer. Active in the type community as part of Times New Woman and Letrástica staff.

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Tamara Segura Headshot

Tamara Segura

Type & Lettering Designer

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/theilonabrand/">Ilona</a> (they/them) is an artist, extrovert, teacher and technologist who sees their work as love notes to themself, the world, and others. They work across mediums using music, poetry, code, drawing, and their jewish practice as tools of expression both publicly and privately. These days they are particularly interested in trans narratives of liberation, judaism as a site of ritual, visibility on and offline, and how we present ourselves and our work to the world.

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Ilona Brand

Artist & Technologist

Libbie Bischoff (she/her) is a California-based type designer. After graduating Type West in 2020, she opened her own type foundry, <a href="http://typedunord.com/">Type Du Nord</a>. She started by making 52 fonts in one year and is now focusing on building her type library.

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Libbie Bischoff

<a href="https://beatrizl.com/">Beatriz</a> (she/her) is a designer, typographer, and educator exploring how technology can push typography to exist at the intersection of the physical and digital world. She teaches interaction design at Parsons and was formerly a design director at Sunday Afternoon.
Originally on the path to becoming a mechanical engineer, Beatriz shifted to graphic design as her involvement in immigrant rights activism exposed her to the power of visual communication. Her work has been recognized by the ADC, TDC, Communication arts, and PRINT. Some of her clients include ESPN, Target, and NPR.

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Beatriz Lozano

Designer, Typographer, and Educator

<a href="http://www.instagram.com/davidjonwalker">David</a> (he/him) is an Associate Professor of Art in Graphic Design at Austin Peay State University and is currently pursuing a MFA in Graphic Design with a focus on letterform and typography at Yale School of Art. He is also principal of Rhealistic Design, a design consultancy that is active locally and nationally. He is a designer and lettering artist, who explores the relationship of type placed with images of people—and how this can sometimes be loving, at other times aggressive, etc. He will also share his process of exploring these relationships.

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David Jon Walker

Designer & Lettering Artist

<a href="https://www.lalizlabeth.com/">Elizabeth</a> is a design educator and product designer with a decade of experience. She is currently building an alternative design school starting with the course The Art of Visual Design. Previously, she has worked at companies like Khan Academy, Primer, and LinkedIn.

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Elizabeth Lin

Product Designer & Educator

<a href="https://juankafka.com">Juan Villanueva</a> (he/him) is a Peruvian typeface designer and educator in New York City. Juan is a Sr. Type Designer at Monotype. A graduate of the Type@Cooper Extended program, he has taught for institutions such as Type@Cooper, The City College of New York, and The Letterform Archive. Juan is also the founder of <a href="https://typecritcrew.com">Type Crit Crew</a>, an initiative to make type design education more accessible and inclusive.

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JuanVillanueva-Headshot

Juan Villanueva

Type Designer & Educator

<a href="https://soulellis.com/">Paul Soulellis</a> (he/him) is an American artist, graphic designer, publisher, and educator. He maintains his practice in Providence, Rhode Island. His work includes teaching, writing, and experimental publishing, with a focus on queer methodologies and network culture. His writings and work are cited in scholarly research, and his publications are collected and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Soulellis is the founder of <a href="https://queer.archive.work/">Queer.Archive.Work</a>, a non-profit organization that joined Binch Press in 2021 to create a 2,000 sq. ft. library, print studio, and residency that supports a growing membership-based community of artists and writers. Binch/QAW has a mission to center Rhode Island-based queer and trans voices with access to space and resources for experimental publishing. Soulellis is also the founder of Library of the Printed Web, a physical archive devoted to web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter. The collection of 250 works was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art Library in New York in 2017.

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Paul Soulellis Headshot

Paul Soulellis

Artist and Educator

<a href="https://lynneyun.com">Lynne Yun</a> (she/her) is a Korean typeface designer and educator fluidly connecting the seams between calligraphy, type design, and generative typography. She is an alumna of the Type@Cooper Extended program, School for Poetic Computation, and ITP at New York University. She has previously taught for institutions such as Type@Cooper, Parsons School of Design, and The Letterform Archive. She currently runs <a href="https://spacetypeco.com">Space Type</a>, an NYC studio operating at the intersection of type and technology.

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Profile Image - Lynne Yun

Lynne Yun

Type Designer, Educator & Technologist

Jamie Chang (he/him) Founder of <a href="https://www.manictype.com/">Manic Type</a>, Jamie Chang is a seasoned type designer and letterer based in Toronto, Canada. Jamie’s work delves into expressive typography, and its textural intricacies. A graduate of Type@Cooper and holding an MA TypeMedia from The Royal Academy of Art in the Hague. He now teaches at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He has spent years working on his independent practice designing typefaces, and working for Canada Type and The Northern Block.

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Jamie-Chang_Headshot

Jamie Chang

Fabiola Mejía (she/her) is an independent type designer from Costa Rica. In 2017, she completed the Type@Cooper Condensed Program in NYC, and in 2019, she received an MA in Typeface Design from TypeMedia, in The Netherlands. Besides working remotely with Dinamo Typefaces, she recently founded <a href="https://supercontinente.com">SUPERCONTINENTE</a>, a platform dedicated to her type design practice and collaborative graphic explorations.

Fabiola Mejía

<a href="https://kyeh.me">Kevin</a> (he/him) is a partner at <a href="https://spacetypeco.com">Space Type</a>, a Brooklyn based type studio that operates at the intersection of type, design, and technology. Kevin has a background in computer vision, graphics and robotic learning, and holds an MS in computer science and film studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He also works at Nava PBC, where he partners with government agencies to build simple and reliable public digital services.

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Profile Image - Kevin Yeh

Kevin Yeh

Developer & Technologist

<a href="https://www.kevinbarrettkane.com/">kbk</a> (he/him) is an award-winning designer and educator. He cofounded The Frontispiece in 2015 with Emma Christine Hall and currently serves as senior book designer at University of California Press. He has designed books and typography for Stanford University Press, Chronicle Books, Amazon Publishing, Dzanc Books, FG Press, John Wiley &#x26; Sons, and more. In 2020, he graduated from the Type West post-graduate Type Design Program at Letterform Archive where he designed Wordcooker with Nurullah Gokdogan. He teaches design practice, theory, and philosophy at Letterform Archive, Type Electives, Stanford University, the University of Colorado, and more.

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Kevin Barrett Kane Headshot

Kevin Barrett Kane

<a href="http://www.ginaroi.com/info">Gina</a> (she/her) is a passionate storyteller with 10 years of experience working in branding throughout New York City. Her love for illustrating with type only grew stronger while working on the Brand Studio team at The Public Theater with creative director Paula Scher. She specializes in lettering, motion graphics, and typographic systems for cultural institutions, startups, and the food and beverage industry as an independent designer and art director.

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Gina Roi Headshot

Gina Roi

Art Director & Designer

<a href="https://candicebotelho.me/">Candice</a> (she/her) is an art director, motion designer, and illustrator from Brasilia, Brazil, based in New York City. Her practice revolves around exploring brands’ microcosms through animation, typography, and 3D graphics, creating compelling visual systems within them. Since 2022, she has been working as an independent contractor with a variety of digital platforms and marketing agencies. Her work has been featured at the University of Edinburgh, Comic Con, and recognized by Working Not Working.

Candice Botelho Headshot

Candice Botelho

Animator & Art Director

<a href="https://www.mdholakia.com/">Meghna Dholakia</a> (she/her) is a designer and artist fascinated by individual, collective, and geologic narratives of transformation. She is interested in how communities come together, commune, and collapse. Currently, she is a designer at The New York Times helping people think more clearly about how to work together.

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