 Thanks for the introduction. I'm equal parts thrilled and terrified to be here, so let's see how it goes. I'm going to dive right in and ask this question today. What happens when we gender type? I'll be asking this question and challenging it. Before I start, a couple of necessary disclaimers. This talk is based on gender stereotypes. I don't like gender stereotypes, but I work with them. I respect all genders. And also, this is not a type crit. So I won't be saying this is good, this is bad, this is wrong, this is right. I am here to research, observe, and derive analysis from data. So to dive in, I am just going to leave you with this and not say anything. Does anything come to mind? So with the title of the talk, can you think about gender as anything forming in your mind? Maybe, maybe not. But I think I'm pretty sure that something is forming. Now, I am going to add a bit of art history in the mix, because why not? These two paintings are by a French painter called Angra, which most of you may know. Both mythological paintings on the left is Angelica from Roger Freeing Angelica, and on the right is Jupiter from Jupiter and Thetis. Again, I'm not going to say anything. I am just going to let you think. Now, if I make images like this while making layers and turning them into a single image, I, you know, influenced your brain into thinking something about stereotypes, and I made two assumptions. One, you had no issues with personifying type. Everyone was cool with that. I showed you letters and you were able to, you know, think about letters as people. That was no issue. And two, sadly, like myself and like everyone, you make decisions based on gender stereotypes. But that's okay. I'm here to, you know, help us get rid of that. So, anatomy of type is something we hear all the time. It's a term that's been coined for a while. Why? Frankly, I'm not so sure, because it's weird. Letters are not living beings. They're not humans. We shouldn't be saying anatomy, but we do. And we go even further. So, using those paintings, we use body parts to name letter parts, which is very weird, but we do it. So, based on that, I am going to, you know, use the fact that we treat letters like people to help you understand my talk today. So, if we were to look for gender markers and letters, where would we look? I mean, letters maybe are gendered, but they don't have a biological sex. They don't have reproductive organs, no body hair nor hormone levels. So, where to look? So, let's look at some physical aspects of letters that we can analyze. On average, science tells us that men are taller than women. Okay. Why not? Maybe taller letters can be masculine. On average, women have more body fat than men. Okay. Maybe bolder slash fatter letters can be feminine, but then would that mean, you know, where's the limit? Is a bold weight feminine compared to a lightweight, but masculine next to an extra bold? I am going to cut this right here and there. Using physical aspect to determine gender in letters is inconclusive at best. So, what else could we have? Well, you know, if we're going to treat letters like people, we name them. We name fonts and it's a huge part of identity. So, I really want, you know, I really want you to think about what I'm going to show next because name is important. Using this list, this list is from 2013. It was compiled by Font Shop. It was called the best 100 typefaces of all time, I think. I don't care. I'm not here to say, oh, yes, they absolutely are or aren't. I'm just looking at the names. So, 100 typefaces. 32 of them are named after people. That's a lot. That's a third. So, either named after real people or famous people or type designers, printers, you name it. Now, in those 32 typefaces, five are named after women. Yes. And, just for kicks, it's not the subject, but, you know, one was made by a woman. So, going back to those five typefaces made by women, sorry, named after women. Fedra, Joanna, PMN, Cecilia and Trixie. I am literally just looking at the names. I don't care about the typefaces. Just look at them. Say the names in your head. Those are all first names. Only first names, you know, as opposed to Baskerville and Garamond. Only first names. And the stories behind the typefaces, they're all named, you know, either after personal connections relating to the type designers or, in the case of Fedra, tragic mythological figure, which isn't the best female role model, especially if you're familiar with Fedra's story. Now, I said there were five. Number five is Mrs. Eaves, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. Mrs. Eaves is special. She's a Mrs. And she is named after a famous woman. Sarah Eaves, who was John Baskerville's mistress slash wife and helped him immensely with his work as a printer. So, what can Mrs. Eaves tell us? Mrs. Eaves, as probably all of you know, was designed by Susanna Litchko and was sort of a revival of Baskerville. We're studying gender markers. So, how is the femininity conveyed by the name Express Elsewhere? Where can we find it? This is a quote from a forum on an article on Mrs. Eaves. The quote is long, but it's really worth reading, especially the bold sentence. Now, this person writes that Mrs. Eaves is soft-spoken, warm, low contrast and has a distinct feminine touch to it. Okay. I don't know what soft-spoken means in terms of type phase design, but this person is adamant that Mrs. Eaves is feminine. We're going to have to look beyond, beyond physical aspect, beyond name. What else could there be? What is so specific about Mrs. Eaves? Well, Mrs. Eaves, one of, you know, the distinctive features of that type phase is the hundreds of ligatures that it proposes. That to me is interesting. Ligatures are ornamental. So, what is the ornamental? They're lovely, but they're ornamental. If we look at the official specimen books for both Mrs. Eaves on the left and Mr. Eaves on the right, which is, I quote, the sans-serif companion to Mrs. Eaves, published in 2007, with, you know, ornamentality in mind. What do those layouts tell us? If you look at the sizes and the choices of glyphs used for both Mrs. Eaves and Mr. Eaves, you know, I think it tells us a huge deal about what we mean when we say that a type phase is feminine. Now, I believe that the perceived femininity of Mrs. Eaves has nothing to do with its physical aspect, a little bit to do with its name, but everything to do with a third gender marker usage. Now, to demonstrate this, I am going to use covers of children's coloring books. I know this is horrific. They're published by Michael Omara, which is a British publishing house from 2013. Both of them got out at the same time. I removed the color for less distraction, because obviously it was pink and blue. But what we really want to focus on here is the type. So, look at everything, type, but also, you know, the drawings and the wording and the titles and think. If we extract the type, it's just the very last layer in an accumulation of stereotypes. That type phase choice is the nail on the coffin of gender stereotypes. You know, you've got beautiful girls and brilliant boys on one side, and then you've got the choice of an ornamental type phase with swashes amongst cakes and butterflies. You know, what is that saying to little girls? It's saying you're here for decorative purposes. And I'm going to dip into art history again to make this point. This is another painting by a 18th century painter, François Boucher. Now he was heavily critiqued in his time for being a feminine painter. People didn't like him. They thought he was frivolous and not serious, and they hated his paintings. This is a quote from Diderot, the French philosopher. And I think it's interesting how he attacks Boucher by saying that, you know, the figures that he painted, were just not suitable for real art. You know, can you imagine this guy making statues? No. And I think that's really interesting. And he actually insulted him even more by calling him a pintre de ventaille, which is a fan painter. Now, fans, they're ornamental. They're frivolous and they're used by women. He really went into the kill there. So moving on to, I think, the most important place to look for gender markers is our biased perception. And to illustrate that, I'm going to use, well, 18th century again, but not quite art, anatomy. These pair of skeletons are from the very end of the 18th century. One is male, one is female. I'll let you look at the animals next to the skeletons to figure that one out. And, you know, at that time, anatomy was big. It was all about making the best representation of the human body, scientific accuracy, and it was a whole new field. So it was big and there was competition. Now, this was one of the two sets that was favored at the time in Britain. And if you just look at them closer, I mean, just look at the sizes of the skulls, the size of the rib cage. That's not scientifically accurate. That is not what a women's skeleton looks like on the left, but it was being published in anatomy textbooks. And this guy called John Barkley wrote this, which is the Wildering. And, you know, I feel sorry for the guy because being that insecure, can you relate? But, yeah, I mean, my point with this is that if we really articulate it, it's not that the anatomy of women determined their behavior, it's that the perception of what women should be or do determined the perception of their anatomy. Now, if we just change a few words, it's what we're dealing with in our work and, you know, our work as designers and type designers. So it's not that the anatomy of letters determines the femininity, it's that our perception of what femininity should be determines our perception of letters. Right. So if I do this again one more time, I hope the first slide makes even more sense now. And, you know, I hope that you've gained some insight into how, where and why we gender type and what happens when we do. Now, moving on to the better question, what happens when we stop? I'm going to move away from 18th century stuff and use, you know, more current things, cosmetics. They're an interesting product for us because there's a huge development all simultaneously between men's cosmetics and gender neutral cosmetics and unisex cosmetics. I could comment on each of the typeface choice for these, but I'm just going to focus on two. The last two. So, the last two. On the left is serum by non-gender specific, that's the name of the brand and on the right perfume bottle by a brand called Le Labo. Now, I think what's interesting here is that the one on the left is taking a stereotypically neutral typeface, take this with a pinch of salt. I mean, my talk is based on stereotypes, so bear with me. Stereotypically neutral typeface and making a gender neutral product. The one on the right is taking stereotypically masculine typeface choices and making a unisex product, which I think is way more interesting. And as another example of that, this is an album cover from 2016, I think. Now, the font on there is called Gloss Drop, and I think some people might call that, you know, a Pinterest wedding font. I don't agree, but some people might call it like that. Now here, think of the coloring books and all the layers. All of that is removed and it's just about the font and it's about the rhythm of the font and its relationship to music. It's not about pink versus blue and cakes and unicorns versus submarines and planes. So I think that's the way to go. Now, as a way to summarize, this was an article I read while researching this project. This is about a wine glass. Replace that with letter form and I think we're good. I don't think gender should or could be used to describe typefaces. Bonus. This, I think, is pretty much the reason I'm here. My research is, you know, important to me, but this is important to you guys every single day and everyone who works with clients. What to do when someone asks, I really wanted a more masculine feel. I really wanted that feminine font. Keep calm. Ask them to clarify, you know, if you ask and they realize that it was a stupid thing to say, that's a good start. And then this is really important. Help them. You know they don't necessarily, but you're in the position to help them choose. So help them choose other words and other terms. When they say feminine, do they mean something about the physical aspect of the font? So high contrast, you know, something that was stereotypically associated in their minds with femininity. Help them voice that and, you know, help them to say low excite rather than feminine. Do they mean values historically associated with femininity, maybe? Try to get them going. Do they mean something about the usage, you know, traditionally being used alongside femininity? Think of Mrs. Eves. Or do they mean something, you know, that's really specific to femininity, something only women can do? Do they want a font about witchcraft? Who knows? It doesn't matter, but you're here to help and that's important. So last point, take the time to explain why it matters because I sincerely believe that it does. And I'm really happy, you know, to have been able to talk to you about it. So that brings on to my very last slide. Merci beaucoup. All the examples and quotes and images in this presentation are from this book, which is my thesis project, which Jean-François directed. If you want to know more, I'm more than happy to talk to you about it. That's it for me. I still have two minutes left, so questions are welcome.