This PhD research investigates the process of organising and cataloguing individual professional archives in the fields of graphic and type design, with the aim of analysing how these archives can be activated to become a tool for creative practice and contemporary research.

The project focuses on a selection of archives from individuals who were active in design during the second half of the 20th century. These archives may be held in different types of institutions—national libraries, municipal public libraries, specialised public libraries, archives and libraries that are part of an art or design institution, museums, schools and universities, private institutions with restricted access, but also in the homes of their creators. These institutions follow different archiving methodologies and have very diverse accessibility and conservation policies.

Graphic and type design archives are still underestimated and understudied compared to archives in other disciplines. This is particularly true of type design archives, where much work remains to be done in terms of cataloguing and organising their content.

By improving our understanding of how these archives are constructed and by thinking about how they are structured, we can contribute to research in the field of graphic and type design. The way we build, organise, and catalogue graphic and type design archives today determines how the history of design will be written.