“Constellations in Metal: An Exploration of Baltic Typographic Identities.” is a one-day conference, taking place on April 24th 2026, from 11.00-18.00 at Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA.)
Print culture has long been recognised as a driver of new identities (McLuhan 1962). In particular, print media have enabled the imagining of national communities, thereby shaping modern national consciousness (Anderson 2006). Typefaces, as cultural artefacts embedded in books, documents, and ephemera (Shaw 2017), are a tangible expression of this process. This theoretical framework is particularly evident in the Baltic context, seeing typography and identity intertwine throughout history and today. The conference explores this Baltic print and typographic heritage, including historic and contemporary examples.
It builds on the initial findings of the Ministry of Culture Creative Research Grant (KUM-LU)Constellations in Type: Estonian Print Identity, 1918-1940, while extending the discussion to encompass perspectives from further regions.
Please register here: https://forms.gle/HkJ2z96vvVftYM9t9
The conference is also available online. Please make it known in the form if you would like to attend online and we will send a link.
NB! The conference will be held in English. Participation is free.
Location: Room: A-501, Estonian Academy of Arts, Põhja puiestee 7, Tallinn 10412
Conference programme:
10.30 Coffee and arrivals
11.00 Danila Rigovskiy – “Welcome and Introduction to the Constellations in Metal project. “
11.30 Aleksandra Samuļenkova – “When lettershapes shift”
12.15 Paweł Schulz – “Digital type initiatives in museum setting”
13.00 Lunch Break
14.00 Laimė Lukošiūnaitė – “Letters in Transit: Form, Adaptation, and Authorship in Interwar Lithuanian Type Specimens”
14.45 Lewis McGuffie – “The Ur Types: A Gothic Type Family”
15.30 Coffee break
16.00 Julia Syrzistie – “Letterpress as artistic research and studio-based practice”
16.45 Ivar Sakk – “Type in Estonia 1918–1940: printing offices, typefaces, type foundries”
18.00 Close