Gear

Typochondria 20. 20 Years of the TypoSzalon

typography

December 10, 2020. Thursday 18.00

Exhibition of the Hungarian Typography Association

opens: András Virágvölgyi

 

 

 

 

The vernissage is available on the YouTube channel of FUGA:

Exhibitors: József Árendás, Ferenc Barka, Rozi Bornemissza, Oszkár Boskovitz, Evelin Bózsa, Zsolt Czakó, Balázs Csöllei, David Quay, Gábor Domján, Alexandra Faltis, István Faragó, Anna Farkas, Ferenc Forrai, Vanessza Gahó, Jenő Gerendy, Gergő Gilicze, Gábor Gyárfás, Zoltán Halasi, Ágnes Haász, Dorina Hargitai Metzler, Janisz Horváth, Lívia Janiga, Ferenc Kiss, Dóra Kalmár, Ádám Katyi, Dénes Kaszta, Tünde Kálmán, György Kemény, István Kiss, László Kiss, László Koscsó, Szilvia Lázár, Attila Lehoczky, Zsolt Ligetfalvi, György Kara, Balázs Král, Attila Lőrincz, János Litványi, Péter Maczó, István Mátrai, Gyula Molnár, Vanessa Lenka Nar, Ferenc Nádai, Gábor Orgoványi, Paul ter Wal, Csaba Pál, Ádám Pócs, Tibor Raszler, Hilka Riba, Ágnes Rozmann, László Sándor, Péter Schubert, Péter Serfőző, Ilona Simon, Anikó Sinka, Márton Szabó, Iván Szamos, György Szőnyei, Gábor Andor Tooth, György Turkovits, Tibor Vass, Zoltán Vass, László Sándor Vasvári, Péter Vasvári, Erika Vincze, Vera Voronkó, Rita Wágner, Miklós Zsemberi Szígyártó, Ervin Zsuborim

20 years ago, we left the University of Applied Arts after ’typo’ class and on the bus, as usual, we were discussing typography: about the fact how much it is missing from the public discourse, that the word itself is much unknown, often mixed with topography. Back then the film subtitles ran with ’ű’ and ’ö’ with macrons due to the lack of Hungarian fonts.

Later it became fashionable: everywhere we bumped into distasteful signs, as the proliferation of plotters came with the equal spread of the visual trash on the streets. With the appearance of the computers, the number of self-taught graphic designers rose. After acquiring the knowledge on one graphic program, they offered to design low-quality logos and images for pennies. The Chamber of Graphic Designers ceased to exist, hence there was no professional organizing, or not even a journal where we could have gotten information about events, to read critiques.

The idea of the establishment of our own organization did not let my mind resting. After the successful thesis defence of ours in 2000, that took place in the hall of the University of Applied Arts along with the diploma exhibitions of ours, we could have met all our teachers, thus I invited everyone for e a farewell party. We thought of the separation somewhat sadly, of the fact that our group that brought us together is going to shatter very soon. Then, to the gratification of our company, I offered to meet every first Thursday of the month at my place for strictly professional get-togethers, conversations and presentations, without letting politics and other worldview matters intervening. To finalize all this, the present graduates and teachers established the TypoSzalon. And immediately, we released an unofficial founding document on which the following members appeared:

Péter Boltos, Rozi Bornemisza, László Bujáki, Balázs Csöllei, Ferenc Házmán†, Janisz Horváth, Hanna Hreblay, Kapitány Ágnes, Ákos Kelényi†, Zoltán Kemény, Kristóf Kerényi, Judit Képe, István Kiss, László Kiss, Péter Maczó, Ferenc Nádai, János Posztós, Szilvia Németh, Ilona Simon, Anikó Sinka, Márton Szabó, István Vincze, Dr. Krisztina Voit†, Péter Wellner, Edit Zigány†.

We were only a group of friends who played with letters, did not seek to set up binding rules, professional fashion, to dictate style. As the circle expanded, with our thematic exhibitions we gave space for not only the membership, but after jurying, to additional colleagues who exhibited happily with us.

After four years, because of the application opportunities and administrative policies we evolved into an association, hence we became the TypoSzalon Hungarian Typography Association.

We recreated the salon as educational form: numerous interesting lectures, presentations took place during the years. The mostly screened presentations were followed by professional discussions, arguments, world-changing ideas, mostly in the kitchen.

After becoming an association, our thematic exhibitions opened up for the broader public. To our surprise, the interest in our re-configured art form, the typography was enormously huge.

/Rozi Bornemissza/

https://www.facebook.com/typoszalon/