Typefaces Created by Women
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, I decided to pay attention to women type designers and their fonts. I hope it is a useful and pleasant gift! )
Previously, type design has been predominantly a “male profession”. But in recent decades, this unjustified gender bias is gradually levelling out.
In Ukraine, only men used to be engaged in type design on a permanent basis. Women have just recently started to enter this profession, after many years of work with calligraphy or illustration. I hope they will come also with programming and other experiences too.
Let’s research fonts created by women from different countries, on the example of Rentafont’s font collection. Today it is 3346 fonts of all types for all purposes (March 8, 2019).
824 Women’s Fonts — 24,6% of the collection
The authors or co-authors of these fonts are women
36 Authors
- Akiko Nakashima
- Alexandra Alexandrova
- Alexandra Korolkova
- Alexandra Yegorova
- Anastasia Babaljan
- Arina Alaferdova
- Catherine Galuyan
- Catherine Pulenko
- Debora Manetti
- Elena Tsaregorodtseva
- Elvira Slysh
- Emma Zakharova
- Galina Bannikova
- Gayane Bagdasaryan
- Iraida Chepil
- Irina Smirnova
- Isabella Chaeva
- Lyubov Kuznetsova
- Lyudmila Mikhailova
- Marchela Mozhyna
- Maria Selezeneva
- Maria Sokil
- Marina Bakhireva
- Marina Mykhalska
- Natalia Vasilieva
- Olga Karpushina
- Olga Pankova
- Olga Umpeleva
- Svetlana Akatieva
- Svetlana Ermolaeva
- Svetlana Morozova
- Tatiana Liskova
- Tatiana Lyashenko
- Veronika Burian
- Yana Nosenko
- Zhanar Bereketova
Let’s see what type of fonts women make. Do they gravitate to particular class or mood?
Common Classification
456 Fonts for Body Text — 55.3%
Workhorse font families created by women
431 Sans Serifs — 52,3%
Sans Serif fonts created by women
324 Serifs — 39,3%
Serif fonts created by women
55 Handwritten Fonts — 6,7%
Handwritten fonts created by women
14 Decorative Fonts — 1,7%
Decorative fonts created by women
Associations
648 Unisex Fonts — 78.6%
Gender neutral fonts created by women
138 Masculine Fonts — 16,7%
Fonts with masculine look created by women
38 Feminine Fonts — 4,6%
Fonts with feminine look created by women
Summary
Women create high-quality and popular fonts of widespread use, not only cute naive calligraphy, as some designers think. And these 25% earn more than 75% of profit!
Women do not tend to make fonts associated with “women’s stuff” “women’s magazines”, “women’s novels”. In addition, among the fonts created by women, there are much more masculine (16.7%) than feminine (4.6%).
I believe that the entry of women into professions that previously were occupied by men is as beneficial to society as the discovery of new lands, the invention of new energy source or new material.
Happy Women’s Day, dear colleagues! =)
