In recent years a cohort of diverse, progressive and culturally-aware practitioners in the highly specialised field of type design has emerged from Australia and New Zealand. Counter Forms is a website and publication that provide a platform for contemporary Antipodean type designers to present their work, research, philosophies and opinions through the lens of the key Design week themes: Transparency, Currency, Legacy.
Auslan interpreting is available upon request, please use contact link below. Requests must be sent at least 10 days prior to event.
Dominic Hofstede
Dominic Hofstede is a partner in the international design studio Mucho. In 2009, he established recollection.com.au, an online archive of Australian graphic design from 1960 to 1990. In 2014 he was appointed an adjunct senior research fellow at Monash Art, Design and Architecture where he is a teaching associate in communication design.
Vincent Chan
Vincent Chan is a type designer based in Naarm (Melbourne) where he works under the moniker Matter of Sorts. For over a decade Vincent has collaborated with studios, organisations and individuals across commercial and cultural fields. He has designed custom typefaces for institutions such as Australia Post, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Melbourne Airport, Telstra and the Powerhouse Museum. He is course coordinator of Typography 1 and Type Design at Monash Art Design and Architecture where he completed his doctoral degree in 2021 focused on discursive typographic practice. In 2019 He was granted an Ascender award from the Type Directors Club — one of ten international winners recognised for expanding the medium of typography.
Thy Hà
Thy Hà is a Vietnamese designer, born and raised in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam, and currently based in Melbourne, Australia. In 2019, she received her MA in Communication Design at RMIT University. During the day, she works as a UX/UI designer, creating websites and digital experiences. At night, Thy runs her type design practice – Mai Type, focusing on Vietnamese localised typefaces. She is also a member of Lưu Chữ, a Vietnamese typography collective. In 2021, Thy was selected as one of three finalists of The Malee Scholarship, a scholarship fund initiated and funded by Sharp Type. Seeing that type design is still perceived as a Western-centric discipline, she hopes to minimise the dissimilarity gap between markets in the future.
Wei Huang
Wei Huang is a Chinese-born Australian graphic and typeface designer living on unceded Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Wei’s practice is informed by the history of visual communication and technology, vernacular typography, and subculture. Wei splits his time between engineering and design: producing and engineering fonts, drawing typefaces, logos and sometimes graphic design. In 2014, Wei released the award winning open source typeface Work Sans on Google Fonts. In 2022, Wei was named a Type Directors Club (TDC) Ascender – an international award recognising typographers on the rise around the world.