Pre-conference workshops

Pre-conference workshops 22 & 23 June 2026

We are pleased to announce 3 pre-conference workshops that will take place prior to the main conference event. These workshops aim to provide doctoral students, postdocs, and all those interested in the topics with knowledge and practical skills related to the conference themes. The workshops are free of charge and can be attended by all gʁafematik 2026 conference participants. Participants are welcome to attend as many workshops as they wish. (Please only sign up for one session of Workshop A; it runs twice with identical content.) First-come, first-served.

Workshop A: Introduction to letterpress 

(Geoff Wyeth)

Mo 22 June / 10 am – 1 pm / Room: Historic Printing Presses Workshop 

Tue 23 June / 10 am – 1 pm / Room: Historic Printing Presses Workshop 

This workshop has two parts. In the first, you will see a demonstration of casting metal type by hand and letterpress printing using a reconstruction of a 15th-century wooden hand press. Metal type in scripts beyond Latin – such as Arabic, Chinese, Devanagari, Hebrew – will be on hand to examine, with a sample setting available to print from on our 19th-century Albion press.

In the second part, you will work with our collection of early 19th-century wood type to create a small composition, working directly with one of four historic printing presses: an Albion, an Atlas, a Columbian, and a Stephenson Blake proofing press. In small groups of three you will explore wood type in a wide range of styles, cuts, and sizes from the department’s extensive Lettering, Printing and Graphic Design Collections, compose and print onto postcards.

Bring your favourite words. Don’t wear your favourite clothes (aprons provided). We look forward to printing with you.

(12 participants max. per session)

Workshop B: Visible language in urban space: a cross-disciplinary methods workshop 

(Irmi Wachendorff and Keith M. Murphy)

Mo 22 June / 2–5 pm / Room: E1 

This workshop explores cross-disciplinary approaches to analysing typography and lettering in urban contexts, bridging visual communication studies and sociolinguistic methods. We’ll engage with a selection of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches to examine typography as a social, spatial, and cultural practice.

You’ll receive 2–3 key readings prior to the workshop, and we ask you to bring a small sample of your own visual research material (photographs, documentation, or digital data). In collaborative visual and contextual analysis sessions, we will apply these approaches to your materials and scope new possibilities for hybrid methods at this disciplinary intersection.

The workshop concludes with a critical reflection on what new analytical possibilities emerge when we work across these fields and how such integration might shape future research on typography in multilingual urban spaces.

(25 participants max.)

Workshop C: Systematic ways of looking at typographic materials 

(Gerry Leonidas)

Tue 23 June / 2–5 pm / Room: T4 or B5

This workshop is a hands-on exploration of ways to describe and analyse primary sources to inform typeface design projects. We will compare published methodologies from adjacent disciplines, and discuss emerging approaches from recent research work, especially for scripts beyond Latin. We will review the methodologies by applying them to a selection of materials, to identify the best way to support research, as well as research-informed practice. A short list of sources will be available in advance, and summarised during the workshop.

(20 participants max.)