Eris emerged from my research for my master's thesis on the notion of appropriation in the activist graphic design of the French fourth-wave feminist movement. I drew on Loraine Furter's reflections in her article "Intersectional, Feminist, and Decolonial Voices in the Graphic Design Field," which discusses how the norms established by the International Typographic Style seventy years ago are not inherently about good or bad taste.
«These forms haven’t been devalued by chance or according to the rules of an immanent universal good taste, but because they are associated with practices, groups, and communities that have been marginalized by the field of graphic design."
"Intersectional, Feminist and Decolonial Voices in the Field of Graphic Design", Loraine Furter, Le Signe Design n°1 : a feminist issue, 2020.
After reading the article, I wanted to create a font using the proportions of Helvetica, the favorite typeface of the International Typographic Style, and then give it a kind of mutation, as if it had its own will. The resulting letters are less harmonious, with visible construction points and unbalanced shapes. I named the font "Eris" after the Greek goddess of discord, inspired by her depiction in the animated movie "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" (2003), where her hair is constantly in motion. Following a similar concept, I also created Swallow, but with a different approach and process.
