Type Electives Lecture Series:

Women in Type: Empowering Voices through Collaboration with Flavia Zimbardi, Tida Tep, Inga Plönnigs, and Ayaka Ito

Get ready for a special panel discussion featuring Flavia Zimbardi, Tida Tep, Inga Plönnigs, and Ayaka Ito, as they share insights into their collaborative work for Women in Type. In this short session, each panelist will give a 3-5 minute presentation providing context to their work, followed by a vibrant conversation and open Q&A. Discover their design journey in multicultural contexts, the value of fostering community, and opportunities for growth through collaboration.

The event will be hosted online via Zoom.

We look forward to having you with us!

Women in Type

Women in Type is a project led by type designer Flavia Zimbardi with the mission of empowering, inspiring, and supporting female-identifying designers by publishing their work, fostering community, and enabling access to knowledge and tools that can help them conquer new spaces and leadership positions.

Flavia Zimbardi

Flavia Zimbardi is an award-winning type designer and visual artist from Rio de Janeiro, currently based in Berlin. Passionate in promoting gender equality and celebrating the diversity of artistic movements in Latin America, she actively collaborates with fellow female designers and infuses Brazilian cultural references into her independent projects. In addition, Flavia frequently partners with esteemed foundries such as Commercial Type and Frere-Jones, and clients such as Google, Pentagram, BBDO, Tyffany & Co, and Penguin Random House. A renowned alumni of the Type@Cooper Extended Program, Flavia made history as the first Brazilian woman to have a typeface awarded by the Type Directors Club in 2018 for her graduation project Lygia, which was also selected for the 8th Latin American Typography Biennial (Tipos Latinos).

Tida Tep

Tida Tep is an independent creative director and designer. She has worked with a wide range of clients including Apple, The New York Times, MoMA, Uniqlo, LVMH, and Google Creative Lab. She is the creative director of Tidal magazine, an independent bi-annual fashion and pop culture magazine, and also teaches typography at Cooper Union in New York City. She received her BFA in Graphic Design from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Postgraduate Certificate in Typeface Design from Type@Cooper.

Inga Plönnigs

Inga Plönnigs is an independent type designer based in Berlin who divides her time between commissioned work for international clients and self initiated projects. Her work focuses on designing typefaces that are easy to use and have a great visual impact at the same time. She is especially interested in modern reinterpretations of old typefaces, giving a typeface its own character and – most importantly – not repeating herself. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication Design from HBK Braunschweig, Germany and a master’s degree in Type Design from KABK The Hague, The Netherlands.

Ayaka Ito

Ayaka B. Ito, based in Brooklyn and Tokyo, has built a career in graphic and type design over more than 15 years, contributing to the visual identities of global brands through her work at agencies including Creech, RoAndCo, and NR2154. A graduate of Type@Cooper, School of Visual Arts, and Rochester Institute of Technology, her portfolio spans type-driven brand identities, editorial design, illustrations, and typefaces. Ayaka's collaborations include projects for clients such as Condé Nast, LVMH, Rizzoli, The North Face Japan, Le Labo, Veuve Clicquot, Tiffany & Co., Hennessy, and Kjaer Weis, reflecting her capacity to blend cultural influences from Japan with Western design principles.