Research Programmes 2025
The Missing Scripts 2025
Unicode has become an essential character-encoding standard for exchanging texts electronically. Unicode 15 encompasses 161 different writing systems, and more than 149 000 characters: its ambition is to include all the scripts of humanity.
The decodeunicode.org website, started in 2005 by Johannes Bergerhausen, and its associated book decodeunicode Schriftzeichen die der Welt (ed. Hermann Schmidt) gives a fascinating insight into the richness and diversity of the scripts covered by Unicode. And yet, more than a hundred writing systems are still missing from Unicode: minority and/or indigenous scripts, sometimes ancient or undeciphered (but not necessarily complex in their design), which are still awaiting to be approved by the Unicode Consortium.
The aim of the Script Encoding Initiative (SEI) at the University of Berkeley is to provide the linguistic expertise required to submit new proposals for these writing systems to Unicode. Many of these scripts have never existed in a typographic form, and display some very interesting shapes: they represent a kind of unexplored territory for type designers. The Missing Scripts project aims to support the SEI’s proposals to Unicode, through the design of typefaces for the missing entries. To achieve this, a multi-year research program is implemented, based on a classification by Johannes Bergerhausen, who established different levels of complexity for these scripts, based on the SEI database. The work will be conducted over a number of years, combining several levels of expertise: linguistics (SEI, Berkeley), type design (ANRT) and graphic design / mediation (decodeunicode, Hochschule Mainz).
The website The World’s Writing Sytems and the poster show the actual state of research.
The Missing Scripts programme will focus, from October 2024 to March 2026, on the following scripts: N’TI, ODUDUWA, KULITAN, ZOU (ZOLAI), along with GURUNG KHEMA and OL ONAL.
Desired profile for the application:
Interest in Latin and non-Latin type design (specify which writing system)
English spoken
Good organisational skills
Visiting professors & experts:
Pr Johannes Bergerhausen, Hochschule Mainz (DE) / decodeunicode.org
Dr Anushah Hossain Université de Berkeley (USA) / Script Encoding Initiative
Frutiger Archive, 1961-1975
Since 2021, the ANRT is hosting in Nancy an exceptional archive of works by Adrian Frutiger: these unpublished documents cover the period 1961-1975 in the Atelier Frutiger (then Frutiger+Pfäffli) at the Villa Moderne in Arcueil.
In 2022–2024, Anna-Lena Wuerth studied the section of the collection devoted to the Univers typeface, and in particular its adaptation for IBM’s Selectric. Anne-Lyse Renon, for her part, is exploring Adrian Frutiger’s manuscripts as part of her HDR (Habilitaion à diriger des recherches), in partnership with ANRT.
The second phase of this research programme involves continuing the study, inventory, and digitization of these documents. This work will be conducted in conjunction with the bilateral collaborative research project “Reception of the New Typography in the French-speaking graphic scenes: rejections, adoptions, renegotiations (1925–1979)” is supported by the ANR / French National Research Agency and the SNSF / Swiss National Science Foundation and led jointly by Prof. Dr Catherine de Smet (Paris 8 University Vincennes – Saint-Denis, UR AIAC) and Prof. Dr Davide Fornari (ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, HES-SO), in partnership with Atelier national de recherche typographique (ANRT), Nancy and LUCA School of the Arts.
Manuscripts, sketches, working drawings, correspondence, photographs will then join the Frutiger archives of the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich.
Renouveau
In the early 20th century, a revival of artistic writing (or decorative writing) developed in several European art and design schools, encouraged by the appearance of new writing tools and the influence of Art Nouveau and then Art Deco. Pedagogues such as Edward Johnston (United Kingdom), Rudolf Von Larisch (Austria), Henry Van de Velde (Belgium), Fritz H. Ehmcke (Germany), Alfred Erdmann (France), Anna Simons and many others defined new approaches to writing and lettering.
As part of the European Renouveau project, which brings together ENSAV La Cambre (Brussels), UMPRUM (Prague) and the Gutenberg University of Mainz, this program aims to study the connections and achievements of these different European schools, and to imagine contemporary extensions.