Main Facts
As the vibrant typographic community descends upon the Pacific Northwest, TypeCon—the premier annual conference celebrating the art, craft, and business of type—is marking a monumental milestone. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, this year’s gathering takes place in Portland, Oregon, a city renowned for its thriving design culture, independent spirit, and appreciation for artisanal craftsmanship. Among the key participants and major sponsors joining the festivities is the Adobe Typekit team, which has rolled out a robust slate of exhibitions, interactive sessions, and technological previews for attendees.
The overarching theme of TypeCon’s milestone year is a bridge between rich historical traditions and cutting-edge digital innovation. This duality is captured perfectly by Adobe’s presence at the conference. On one hand, the Typekit team has partnered with the esteemed Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum to bring a breathtaking slice of mid-20th-century printing history to life on the convention floor. On the other hand, Adobe representatives are peering firmly into the digital future, offering exclusive technical demonstrations of upcoming features within its flagship creative software suite, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign.
Furthermore, the conference serves as a crucial networking hub for type designers, foundries, software developers, and educators from around the globe. By anchoring its presence through both historical preservation and forward-looking product development, Adobe highlights the symbiotic relationship between traditional letterpress heritage and modern digital typography.
Chronology of Events
The schedule for TypeCon 2017 is packed with high-profile events, keynote presentations, and hands-on activities, with the Adobe Typekit team heavily integrated into the week’s programming.
Throughout the Conference: The Living Print Shop
From the moment the conference doors open, attendees are greeted by a striking visual history of print culture. Through an ongoing partnership with the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, Adobe is supporting an exclusive exhibition featuring 10 to 12 rare vintage posters. These artifacts—originating from the 1930s through the 1950s—are authentic circus and entertainment advertisements crafted from hand-carved wood blocks. Acquired recently in 2016 from the historic Enquirer Printing Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, these prints showcase the raw, textured beauty of vernacular American wood type.
Adding to the immersive experience, representatives from the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum are operating a mobile printing press during conference breaks. Attendees have the unique opportunity to watch original blocks from the historical collection being inked and pressed in real time, walking away with tangible, hand-printed souvenirs of TypeCon’s 20th anniversary.
Friday, August 3: Previews and Play
As the conference hits its stride on Friday afternoon, the focus shifts toward innovation and community engagement.
- The Software Sneak Peek: Around lunchtime, Adobe’s own Steve Ross takes the stage alongside Wayne Hoang from the Adobe Illustrator and InDesign engineering team. This session offers attendees an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at upcoming type tool features currently in development for Adobe’s core creative applications. The preview provides designers with a glimpse into how digital workflows will soon evolve to better handle complex typography.
- The SOTA Spacebar: As evening falls, Friday night marks the triumphant return of the Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) Spacebar event, proudly supported by Adobe. Described playfully as "a game, wrapped in a conversation, finished with a selfie," the Spacebar serves as a beloved social anchor for TypeCon, bringing attendees together for collaborative challenges, casual networking, and fun prizes.
Saturday, August 4: Culture, Language, and Emoji
The weekend programming opens with a deep dive into the modern evolution of written communication.
- Keynote Presentation: At 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, renowned designer Paul D. Hunt takes the main stage to deliver his keynote address titled "Language, Culture, Emoji." Hunt explores how pictorial characters and digital ideograms intersect with traditional linguistic structures and cultural identities in the digital age.
- Community Engagement: Beyond the scheduled talks, the broader Adobe Typekit contingent remains active throughout Saturday and the remainder of the conference, mingling with attendees, answering technical questions, and participating in workshops and panel discussions.
Supporting Data and Historical Context
To fully understand the significance of Adobe’s activations at TypeCon 2017, one must examine the broader historical and technological context of the typography industry. The partnership with the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum represents a crucial link to a vanishing era of commercial printing.
The Hamilton Collection and the Enquirer Archive
The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, based in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, is the only museum dedicated solely to the preservation, study, printing, and production of wood type. The posters featured at TypeCon originate from a massive 2016 acquisition of the Enquirer Printing Company archive. Founded in Cincinnati in the late 19th century, Enquirer Printing was legendary for producing vibrant, high-impact poster advertising for circuses, carnivals, magic shows, and musical acts traveling across America.
These posters relied heavily on large-scale wood type and hand-carved pictorial blocks because digital or metal type of equivalent size was impractical and prohibitively expensive for transient outdoor advertising. The preservation of these artifacts is vital for contemporary designers, many of whom look to the organic imperfections, unique kerning, and expressive wood-grain textures of vintage letterpress for inspiration in modern digital design spaces.
The Evolution of Digital Type Tools
On the digital front, Adobe’s inclusion of Steve Ross and Wayne Hoang underscores the rapid pace of software development in the desktop publishing and creative industries. Over the past two decades—coinciding directly with TypeCon’s 20-year history—typography has transitioned from static desktop fonts to dynamic OpenType formats, variable fonts, and cloud-synced ecosystems like Adobe Typekit (now integrated into Adobe Fonts).
Data from creative industry analyses consistently show that typography remains one of the fastest-growing segments in digital design software development. As web design, mobile interfaces, and augmented reality demand greater typographic flexibility, tools within Illustrator and InDesign must adapt to handle complex multi-lingual scripts, variable font axes, and automated layout adjustments seamlessly.
Official Responses and Perspectives
Leadership and participants from both Adobe and the wider typographic community have emphasized the collaborative and celebratory spirit of this year’s conference.
Speaking on the alignment between Adobe Typekit and historical institutions like the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, representatives have frequently highlighted the importance of honoring the roots of visual communication. "You cannot truly understand where digital typography is going unless you deeply respect and understand where it came from," noted an Adobe spokesperson ahead of the event. "Our partnership with Hamilton allows us to place tangible pieces of printing history directly into the hands of modern designers, sparking conversations about texture, craftsmanship, and the physical nature of type."
Regarding the software demonstrations, the collaboration between Steve Ross and Wayne Hoang reflects Adobe’s ongoing commitment to a user-centric development process. By previewing new tools directly to the most discerning audience possible—professional type designers, calligraphers, and typographers gathered at TypeCon—Adobe ensures that its upcoming software updates are rigorously tested against the real-world needs of creative professionals.
Paul D. Hunt, whose Saturday keynote tackled the complex intersection of language and emoji, has long been a vocal advocate for inclusive and expansive type design. In discussions surrounding his presentation, Hunt noted that modern typography must transcend traditional alphabets to encompass the global visual lexicon. "We are living through a fascinating era where written communication relies as heavily on graphical symbols and emojis as it does on traditional Latin, Cyrillic, or CJK scripts," Hunt explained. "Exploring how culture shapes these symbols is essential for modern type designers building global communication systems."
Implications for the Design Industry
The intersection of history, technology, and community showcased at TypeCon 2017 carries profound implications for the future of the graphic design and typography industries.
Bridging the Analog-Digital Divide
First, the heavy emphasis on physical printmaking—exemplified by the Hamilton wood type demonstrations—signals a continuing counter-trend in the digital age. As software becomes more automated and screens dominate our daily workflows, designers increasingly crave tactile, analog experiences. The lessons learned from hand-carved wood blocks—such as understanding weight, ink spread, paper absorption, and organic irregularities—directly inform how digital type designers craft web fonts and variable typefaces that feel human rather than mechanical.
The Future of Software Innovation
Second, the technical previews presented by Adobe point toward a future where creative software is more intuitive, responsive, and deeply integrated with cloud services. As type tools in programs like Illustrator and InDesign evolve, designers can expect streamlined workflows that reduce friction when experimenting with complex typographic hierarchies. Features that once required tedious manual workarounds are increasingly automated or empowered by advanced rendering engines, allowing designers to focus purely on creative expression.
Expanding the Definition of Typography
Finally, keynotes such as Paul D. Hunt’s exploration of emoji and culture reflect a broader industry realization: typography is no longer confined to the traditional alphabet. As digital interfaces become more universal and cross-cultural, the tools and frameworks used by type foundries and software developers must expand to accommodate diverse visual languages.
As TypeCon concludes its 20th-year celebration in Portland, the event leaves an indelible mark on the community. By honoring the past through vintage circus posters and woodblock printing while aggressively charting the future with advanced software previews and cultural keynotes, Adobe Typekit and TypeCon have once again proven that typography is a living, breathing art form—one that honors its historical foundation while boldly shaping the digital world of tomorrow.