Script, Print and Letterforms in Global Contexts

The global history of text-based communication constitutes a particularly exciting facet of material culture, given the myriad ways in which its production, transmission, and consumption has been – and continues to be – accomplished across cultural and political boundaries. However, a critical engagement with script and print outside the western world has remained relatively limited to summaries and generalisations, despite a burgeoning interest in the interrelated areas of printing, publishing, design, and type histories. The time is long overdue for these narratives relating to the material production of text to expand, and address the rich variation and particularity of global practices. Covering a variety of scripts and linguistic contexts, this volume explores the plurality of historical and contemporary engagements with, and interpretations of the printed and written word in various artefacts, printing technologies, and writing systems. Part of the Printing History and Culture series by the Centre for Printing History and Culture, this book presents critical perspectives and fresh approaches toward the study of the visual and material aspects of print in diverse linguistic environments – whether handwritten, lithographed, typographically printed, or digitally manifested.

Sahar Afshar is an independent type designer and researcher who divides her time between her practice, consultation, teaching and research, particularly in relation to the Arabic script and the various regions and cultures that use this writing system.

Wei Jin Darryl Lim is an independent book and print historian. His research remit focuses on the global and transregional networks of lithography and typography in the Malay world during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Vaibhav Singh is an independent researcher, typographer, and type designer. Previously a Postdoctoral Fellow of the British Academy and chairman of the Printing Historical Society, he is the editor and publisher of Contextual Alternate, a journal of technology, design and history.