Poster by Johanna Baluaíkova-Bilak
e-a-t (experiment and typography) is an exhibition project which reunites designers from the Czech and Slovak Republics. It is a platform to expose typographic work from both countries and acknowledges the fact that the Czech Republic and Slovakia were once a single state. The first e-a-t exhibition presented 35 authors, and the collection continues to expand progressively with new, undiscovered works from the last 20 years. e-a-t is the enthusiastic initiative of designers/curators Alan Zaruba (CZ) and Johanna Baluaíkova (SK/NL), who are both inspired by type work with origins which are local and from abroad.
The show focuses on projects which document the development of designers' ideas. Attention is paid to the process of creating innovative solutions in the fields of type design and typography, often engaging experimental processes as a means to approach unknown territory. Both the ideas in progress and finished works are core elements of the exhibition. The intention is not to chronologically survey the body of work done in the Czech Republic and Slovakia but rather to draw attention to a selection of intelligent concepts which address the environment, changing technologies, consider the subjective and personal, etc. The e-a-t exhibition presents the various type design projects in large format posters (1.5 x 1 m) which unite the form and function to support the individual stories. Creative processes are documented in large numbers of sketches and notes. To complement the variety of projects we consider worth displaying, there is also multimedia work and printed matter, both from commissioned and independent work.
The project initiators hope to create debate within the professional audience but also among the larger public, which is coming in contact with fonts on every day basis. 'We Want You To Love Type' is a credo of the authors/editors of the exibition catalogue: they want to explain the stories behind various typefaces and bring some attention to the discipline of type making. The publication 'We Want You To Love Type' is available at www.typotheque.com