ग्राफ़िक//Graphic
Currently also building - How to [not] design a typeface
Currently also building - How to [not] design a typeface
Tapeface // Collaborative Type Design
If a typeface is used by thousands , why not created by thousands? Tapeface is not your typical typeface. It’s a collective, an experiment, and a playful disruption of design authorship. Created during a workshop by 26 individuals—each with a different color of tape, Tapeface challenges the idea that a typeface must come from a single designer’s grid.The process is simple, yet unpredictable: Each participant is given a sheet with one alphabet and one color of tape. Every 30 seconds, the sheet is passed to the next person, allowing each individual to contribute to every letter. Layer by layer, shape by shape, the forms evolve—sometimes harmonizing, often colliding,until the final letterforms are born.
Every unruly typeface starts with a little chaos. TAPEFACE was never one person alone, it was about seeing what happens when design authorship is shared. By bringing 27 people into the process, each with a different color of tape, the typeface became a living conversation. Every layer was a response to someone else’s gesture, every form a dialogue. I wanted to challenge the myth of the solitary type designer. By inviting 27 people with different backgrounds, designers, coders, illustrators, engineers; to co-create letterforms, the process became a social experiment as much as a typographic one.
TAPEFACE asks: What happens when type design becomes accessible to anyone, regardless of training? What happens when authorship is shared instead of singular? What happens when color, gesture, and play are treated as valid design tools? The second phase, TAPEFACE 02, made these questions even sharper. Each participant became an editor rather than a maker, tracing only the parts they felt made a letter work. It was less about drawing and more about negotiating value, taste, and clarity within collective noise. That act of curation turned the workshop into a reflection on design authority itself.