April Greiman

April Greiman, born in Metropolitan New York, has been recognized for revolutionary digital imaging work, and has been instrumental in the acceptance and use of advanced technology in creative processes since the early 80s.

In 2014, April Greiman featured in Apple’s documentary, ‘Mac @ 30’ recognizing 30 creative individuals’ contributions to the creative fields. And was most recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Typographic Arts, Chicago. An AIGA Medalist, a Chrysler Awardee for Innovation, a National Design Award Finalist in the inaugural year, 2000, she is often referred to by her small studio staff as the OG!

April Greiman also an educator as former Director, Visual Communications Program, California Institute of the Arts; as former faculty, Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) and Woodbury University School of Architecture; is currently a full time Professor of USC Roski Graduate School of Art and Design. Published extensively, including four monographs, and lectured, exhibited worldwide, with works in museum collections, among them Pompidou Center, MOMA, LACMA and SFMOMA. In 2006 a one-woman exhibition of her digital photographs, 'Drive-by Shooting' was mounted at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Eiichi Kono

Eiichi Kono's interests have, for the past 30 years, centred around legibility and typographic design in mixed languages; English and Japanese, occidental and oriental, phonetic and picto-ideographic. Writing and reading are core human competencies which have been developing for thousands of years, and are now revolutionised by digital technologies and global communication. As web pages, ebooks, mobile and navigation systems have become the norm, legibility and readability on screen are vital. The design of typefaces for new media demands new approaches to visual recognition, perception, environment,production, transmission and dissemination, and fundamental appreciation of the origins and development of writing & reading. The key for good typeface design is knowing how to fully assess functionality and quality.

Born in Japan in 1941, Eiichi Kono began his working life in the photo optical industry in Tokyo with Carl Zeiss, and became fascinated by the universality of the Latin alphabet. This brought him to UK in 1974 as a mature student to learn typographic design at the London College of Printing, and on to the Royal College of Art, Graphic Information linked with the Readability Print Research Unit. He redesigned the London Underground's iconic typeface, Johnston Sans for text setting as well as display use in 1979, now known as New Johnston. He carried out the feasibility study for space saving and legibility for BT telephone directory in 1984, resulting in substantial cost savings; 3,000 tons of paper saving, £1m per year cost saving as well as achieving better legibility/usability. He also taught typography and Quantel graphic paint box at Middlesex Polytechnic between 1980 and 1988, and at Reading University in 2006. Graphic design consultancy work includes corporate identity, exhibitions, publishing design for The Economist, Pearson, Arts Council of Great Britain, Royal Academy of Arts, British Medical Journal, WHSmith, Toyota. Since 2002 as team leader,developing Meiryo, Japanese/Latin OpenType fonts with optimal on-screen legibility for Microsoft Windows Vista/7. Recently, Senior research fellow at University of Brighton, leading research into Edward Johnston's Legacy for CETLD (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning through Design led by University of Brighton with Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal College of Art, and Victoria & Albert Museum).

Aurobind Patel

Aurobind Patel was a latecomer to typography having strayed into its captivating web during a publishing project while a student at Harvard Business School. This led him to the rather foolhardy move to quit business school to study design. In hindsight he concedes this would have not have been possible without the sense of untested confidence that plagued many a business school student. An early revelation in his design education was understanding that the roots of typography lay buried in handwriting and well formed shapes. Little did he realise that all the mindless copybook writing that formed part of his early schooling—half an hour each morning before assembly—would actually form the basis to appreciate the finer points of typography, later in life. In 1982 he joined India Today in Delhi and led the gradual process of revising its design while helping a technical team to implement Atex, the first magazine pagination system in the country. The visual appeal that made India Today stand apart from its competitions was largely enabled by the technology supporting its production. India Today's success earned him an offer from The Economist in London. He served as the paper's Design Director from 1987 to 1999 straddling his passion for both design and technology. In 1990, jointly with Gunnlaugur Briem, an outstanding type designer, he designed Ecotype, a family of text faces now used by the paper. The two also went on to design Times Millennium—a digital avatar of the eponymous Times Roman—for the Times newspaper in London. Back in India since 2000, Aurobind divides his time between design assignments and gazing at forms and counter forms.

Prof. Antoine Abi Aad

Antoine Abi Aad (Ph.D. and MA University of Tsukuba in Japan, DES Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Lebanon), is a designer, Assistant Professor at the Lebanese University (Lebanon). He is also a frequent guest lecturer and has given talks and workshops at numerous institutions, including the Universidade de Brasilia (Brazil), International Design School (Jakarta), Institute of Business and Design (Moscow), Hong Kong Design Institute, IIT Bombay, Greenside Design Center College of Design (Johannesburg), Nara University of Education (Japan), and Yale University (New Haven).

Having taught 1600 students since 2004, Antoine’s true dedicating is for research and experimentations. His passion is for letters: typography, calligraphy and handwriting. The different scripts he writes (Arabic, Latin and Japanese) led him to have special interests in the directions of writing, leftward, rightward and downward, and how these directions affect visual communication and advertising, or even more, motion graphics and animation.

Antoine also served as a vice-president of i-cod (formerly Icograda) from 2015 to 2017.

Mohammed Khan

An English Honours graduate from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, 1962

Started advertising career in London. Worked for 8 years as copywriter In two London agencies, Garland Compton and Notley’s, both of which were later merged into Saatchi & Saatchi.

Returned to India, 1971. Creative Director at da Cunha and MCM before starting three of India’s iconic advertising agencies:
Rediffusion (1973), Contract (1978) and Enterprise (1983)

Won over 150 National and international awards for his work.
First Indian to win an international award (Clio 1981)

Has served on all the major advertising juries worldwide including Cannes, Clio, D&AD, often the first Indian or Asian to do so.
Lifetime Achievement Awards:
The AAAI- Premnarayan Award
The Bombay Advertising Club
The Calcutta Advertising Club
The Madras Advertising Club
The Epica Award, (Paris)
Campaign Magazine Asian Hall of Fame

Machine Drives Creativity: Magnetic Pendulum Calligraphy Experiencing the loss of control and the chaos in the motion of Chinese Character ‘writing’
Dr. Hunh Keung, Department of Cultural and Creative Arts, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.........

Puppetmorphic: Incorporating Local Culture to Achieve Distinct Structure in Figurative Calligraphy
Agung Zainal Muttakin Raden and Muhammad Iqbal Qeis, Universitas Indraprasta, Indonesia.........

Typographic experiments as an important element in the education of graphic design students from art schools in Poland
Jarek Bujny, The University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Art Departament, Poland.........

Dis/re-appearance of vernacular Chinese letterform of Beiwei Kaishu in Hong Kong
Brian Sze Hang KWOK, School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.........

Political Awareness and Typography: How an analysis of the intersection of racially linked typography in propaganda and historical analysis can help predict rising political conflict
Priyanka Patil and Julia Owens, FCB Health, New York City, USA.........

Innovative applications of Experimental Typography (Case Studies)
Rikke Hansen and Barnabas Wetton, University of Southern Denmark,Design School Hoejer, Denmark.........

The dichotomic tension of experimental typography
Gavin Ambrose and Beth Salter University of Brighton, UK.........

Experimental type: student group working in the natural environment
Ted Carden, Northumbria University, UK.........

Visual Variety of Typographic Compositions in Letterpress Sinhala Display Typefaces
Dr.Sumanthri Samarawickrama, Malindi Jayathunga, Lakmali Perera, and Sajini Lankadari   Department of Integrated Design, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Lack of visual excellence in design quality of bi-script typefaces including Arabic and Latin scripts
Sahar Khajeh, University of Hertfordshire, UK.........

Exploring historical letterforms to design unique Assamese typeface for digital devices: Experimenting possibilities
Abhijit Padun and Prof. Amarendra Kumar Das,   Dept. of Multimedia Communication and Design, Central Institute of Technology, Kokrajhar, Assam, India.........

Learning through gaming? Comparative innovative educational games of children (An on-going research project)
Siddhesh Sushil Shirsekar, VIVA Institute of Applied Art, India.........

Appetence: Crafted and Casted Typography
Prafullkumar N Gohel, Department of Applied Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, The M.S. University of Baroda, India.........

Mishti Devanagari
Sayli Gokhale, Leaf Design, India.........

Experiments in Bengali Film Titles: 1930s till Ray
Santanu Dutta, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, India.........

Identify personality of Sinhala font on road informative signboards: Test based on readers preferences
Lalani Shyanika Eramudugolla, Dr. Sumanthri Samarawickrama and Prof. Gihan Dias University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Experiential Learning Spaces to Enhance Typographic Communication
Ruchita Arvind Mandhre, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA.........

Typography design in Newspaper - comparative study of typography in Hindi Newspaper vs. English Newspaper
Navneet Kamal and Sujeet Kumar Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, India.........

If Words Could Kill
Jayesh Narendra Patil, United Institute of Design, India.........