While the class of 2024 winds down, it is time for the annual report and thanks. This year we met friends and colleagues from all over the world. Jill Pichotta, David Jonathan Ross, Joyce Ketterer of Darden Studio, Arthur Reinders-Folmer, Maurice Meilleur, Pip Hall, James Edmondson of OhNo Type Co. We visited Gallery West & Alphabetum. With lots of help, support and feedback from the international TypeMedia community in The Hague and around the world.
We visited Berlin and met the type community: Alphabet Type (Andreas Eigendorf), Dinamo (Johannes Breyer & Fabian Harb), Fritz Grögel & Florian Hardwig (letter walk). Type-Crit at the Schick Toikka studio: Katja Schimmel, Inga Plönnigs, Benedikt Bramböck, Florian Schick, Mark Frömberg, Renan Rosatti, Minjoo Ham, Martin Wenzel, Tilmann Hielscher, Rob Keller, Kimya Gandhi, Flavia Zimbardi & Tobias Rechsteiner.
We visited the Plantijn Moretus and the collection of Patrick Goossens in Antwerp, the Enschedé archives at the Noord Hollands Archief with Mart van der Wiel. Rickey Tax showed us around the House of the book. We saw the Berthold Archive at the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin with Kerstin Wallbach. We took a critical look at our programme for one more (successful!) accreditation on standards 2 & 3 with Sébastien Morlighem, Indra Kupferschmid and Márton Kabai. Matthieu Cortat visited with the MA Type Design students from ECAL in Lausanne. And we joined the online TypeLab organised by Petr van Blokland for the 2024 Typographics conference at the Cooper Union, New York.
Paul Barnes of Commercial Type was the external examiner this year. Martin Majoor was the external examiner for Hanna Boslau.
TypeMedia coordinator, teacher & organiser. Jan Willem started the course that would eventually become the MA TypeMedia. He wanted to give the typographic history of the KABK and the ideas of Gerrit Noordzij a place in this school. It was thanks to his care and dedication that the programme took shape. In 2008 all his efforts paid off when the course graduated to a full Master of Design, after the first accreditation. From 1996 until his retirement in 2015 Jan Willem was the promotor and organiser of the tri-annual international Gerrit Noordzij Prize. The MA TypeMedia programme has evolved, but it stands solidly on the foundations that Jan Willem laid out for us. Thank you so much, Jan Willem!