Palantir, an American software company specialising in big data analytics, is currently hosting a series of streamed live events entitled ‘Women in Tech’. Professor Fiona Ross and Dr. Alice Savoie were invited on 19 September 2019 to Palantir’s London office in Soho to talk about typeface design and their ongoing research project ‘Women in Type’.

The talk was comprised of three parts. Firstly, Fiona and Alice introduced themselves, and provided a short overview of typeface design. Secondly, they discussed the importance of typeface design for non-Latin scripts, and presented key projects highlighting important issues as regards the typographic representation of languages for diverse linguistic communities. Finally, Fiona and Alice gave an overview of the ‘Women in Type’ project, discussing aspects of the ongoing research.

Celine Nguyen, from Palantir’s Design Team, then lead an audience Q&A session. Fiona and Alice answered questions not only from Palantir’s London staff but also from staff in New York, Seattle and Palo Alto, whose questions were sent through Slack.

Still image courtesy of Palantir.