Majorities, minorities. Globalization, nationalism. Diaspora, homeland. Individuality, ethnicity. Is it a curse or a blessing to have to fight for one’s ethnic identity? Everybody wants to fight at least a little bit, even if nobody –not even one’s partisans– will notice. Typeface designers can fight. A few of them design to fight. But design is not art, so this fight is for others to benefit.
Being accepted into Europe, China or anywhere else, as an individual or an ethnic group, requires the old cliché: balance. There’s no point being accepted if you become their conquest; but neither can you survive, or at least not thrive, as an invader. And it is the most difficult thing to accept that your host, hopefully your future partner, is better at some things. But you’re better at some other things, because nobody has the same history.
History is dead, but its context ՝eternal. How does a typeface fight for the future? How do you take your history and make a new typeface that will help –in a small way– make things better? How do you leverage the way your language used to be written? How can a typeface make the world richer? The answer is Yes.
Keywords: Armenian, typeface design, ethnicity, minority, assimilation.
