Typotheque North American Syllabics:accommodating the typographic needs and preferences of local Syllabics-using Indigenous communities by reforming the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics text standard
Session 5
Saturday, 2 October 2021
2:00 PM CST – 2:30 PM CST
Talk
Emotion
- English
For minority scripts such as the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, the type design process must begin with community outreach, rather than drawing, to first understand local Indigenous needs and the technical barriers they face with digital text. Only once the text standards are established, can a glyph set be defined, and typeface creation begin. This talk explores the process of building relationships with Syllabics-using Indigenous communities in Canada, conducting research with them, and proposing additions and amendments to the Unicode Standard which lay the foundation for more comprehensive Syllabics typefaces.
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Kevin King
Canada
Kevin King is a typeface designer, calligrapher, and type researcher based in Toronto, Canada. His work centres on research-based typographic design solutions that add value to writing systems, with a focus on supporting the Indigenous languages and writing systems of North America. Through working in collaboration with Indigenous language keepers, he aims to identify technical challenges and accommodate local typographic preferences in order to deliver higher quality typefaces and typographic resources for syllabics and roman orthographies. These efforts lead him to work on script encoding initiatives with the Unicode Consortium, to add missing characters and correct errors in the representation of Indigenous orthographies.
