With Underware’s Bas Jacobs

Date: Thursday 23 April 2026

Location: St Bride Foundation and Online via Zoom

In-Person Timings (BST):
Doors/Bar: 18:15pm
Talk Starts: 19:00pm
Talk Ends: 20:30pm

In-Person Tickets: £9, £12, £14

Please note: Ticket sales end at 4pm on the day of the talk. If available, tickets purchased in-person on the door will cost £16 per person. Please do call or email us to check if an event has any tickets left as you may not be admitted if we have sold out.

Online Timings via Zoom (BST):
Talk Starts: 19:00pm
Talk Ends: 20:30pm

Online Tickets: £7, £9

Please note: Ticket sales end at 4pm on the day of the talk. You will be emailed the Zoom link for by 6pm on the day of the talk. We will also send the link to all in-person ticket holders in case they are unable to attend and would like to join virtually.

Book tickets HERE

In today’s world of Unicode standards and QWERTY keyboards, the uniform approach to text can create the impression that writing is fixed: that letters are static, that typography is a fully developed discipline, and that the work of type designers will remain fundamentally unchanged in the decades to come. This associative lecture on writing, language and letters invites to question the dominant, rational, constructed narrative. If history, too, is a constructed narrative, then perhaps it need not only be written, but can also be assembled.

What follows is not a straight line. Through a series of uninhibited thought experiments, this lecture explores whether not just the history of writing, but maybe also its future, can be ambivalent en multiplied. While doing so, it proposes design as a form of historiography and asks how alternative perspectives can shape our understanding of letterforms, of language and of typographic practices. After all, if a circle is round because it is a circle, where does it actually begin?

The European design collective Underware focuses on designing letters from a formalistic and formative perspective. Their practice manifests itself in design, performance, publication, education and installations. In this lecture, they attempt to offer a different perspective on their own work by placing it in a different context each time.

If you have any questions please contact [email protected] ahead of the event.

For accessibility information click HERE.