Qualifications:          MA, MISTD, FHEA.

Department:              Lincoln School of Art & Design

Position:                     Principal Lecturer, Programme Leader MA Design

Research Group:     Language as Visual Form

Carolyn Puzzovio’s background is as a practicing graphic designer and her major interest within the subject has been lettering and type. This has developed further into questions surrounding alphabets other than our own Latin alphabet.

For a number of years Carolyn’s research focus has been the Armenian ‘aybuben’ – a unique and culturally important alphabet – one much neglected by type designers and lettering artists and which consists of 38 phonetic characters. She has learned about the structure and origins of letterforms for the alphabet though studying hand-written forms and became interested in the printing history which began in 1512 and the development of the typefaces since. Her early ‘Mesrob’ and ‘Yacob’ display type designs resulted from these studies. This work has now evolved into the design of prize-winning text types based on classical/historical Armenian letterforms.

Carolyn has worked on a series of experimental works which explore the aesthetic qualities of some of unfamiliar letterforms in a purely abstract way, creating compositions using traditional craft methods employed by designers prior to the advent of the digital methods – but which she finds a satisfying and enjoyable process. These works have been exhibited widely: in Cluj-Napoca, Romania; New York; Tehran; and most notably at the National Gallery in Yerevan, Armenia, by invitation from the Armenian Ministry of Culture in 2005 when the country celebrated the 1600^th anniversary of their alphabet.

Since her yearly visits to Armenia began in 2005, Carolyn has been working on joint projects with Edik Ghabuzyan, Head of the Department of Creating and Saving Fonts in the Armenian Ministry of Culture and has been involved in a number of projects connected with the Armenian Government at their invitation.

Current Research

It has been recognized in Armenia that quality fonts for the Armenian alphabet are few and there have been initiatives to address this. Carolyn Puzzovio and Edik Ghabuzyan together developed a new Unicode font ‘Brayford’ in 2005 which won a diploma in the ‘Armenian School Fonts’ competition in January 2006. This is a typeface with complementary Latin and Armenian characters for text use. This collaboration is continuing with the formation of ‘Pomegranate Fonts’ – to progress as an online font foundry in 2008/9. http://www.pomegranatefonts.com.

During 2007 Carolyn designed a revival typeface ‘Lagoon’ – an Open Type font with both Latin and Armenian characters, supported by a research grant from the AHRC. This work won a First Prize in ‘Granshan 2008’ – a competition sponsored by the Armenian Government (Armenian Traditional Text Fonts category) and another prize awarded by Microsoft, Yerevan. This work was exhibited at the ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) conference, St. Petersburg, September 2008.

Carolyn has recently written an illustrated article about the Armenian alphabet and type for ‘baseline’ – an international typographic journal widely read by graphic designers and typographers. This is a two-part article for issues 57 & 58 of the magazine (to be published in early 2009).

It is hoped that a further funding bid in 2009 will be successful and enable this research to continue during the next three years in order to prepare and publish a comprehensive illustrated book in cooperation with experts Matenadaran library in Yerevan which will fully and accurately explore the history and development of printing in the Armenian language – and will be published in time to celebrate the important landmark of the 500th anniversary of the 2012 first Armenian printed book by Yakob Meghapart.

Recent Work  

• Two part illustrated article for issues 57 & 58 of ‘baseline’ magazine (to be published in early 2009).
• Member of the judging panel of the first Armenian type design competition ‘Granshan’ at the invitation of the Armenian Minister of Culture in June 2008.
  (Chaired by Jeremy Tankard)
• Curation of ‘Armenian Type Now’ – exhibition of Armenian books and lettering-inspired works in the Wren Library, Lincoln Cathedral, July 2008. The opening event was attended by the Armenian Ambassador and a party of Armenian Ministry of Culture officials from Yerevan.
• Design of a revival typeface ‘Lagoon’ – an Open Type font with both Latin and Armenian characters, supported by a research grant from the AHRC. This work won a First Prize in ‘Granshan 2008’ (Armenian Traditional Text Fonts category) and another special prize awarded by Microsoft, Yerevan. This work was exhibited at the ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) conference, St. Petersburg, September 2008.
• Conference contribution at the National Book Chamber of Armenia (Ministry of Culture) ‘The importance of Armenian fonts ‘input and their copyrights’ maintenance for the further development of IT sector’, organized by Microsoft and the Armenian Government, July 2007.
• Exhibition of selected works, Vice Chancellor’s Boardroom, University of Lincoln. 2007–2008.
   
• ‘The Remarkable Legacy of Mashtots’ – an event at St. Vartan’s Cathedral Diocesian Hall, Manhattan, New York. (One of the main places of worship for the Armenian diaspora in the USA and a cultural centre.) This was an exhibition comprising 17 recent works of A1 size inspired by the Armenian alphabet entitled ‘Fragments’ and based on the contrasts in Armenian drawn poster: lettering/computer generated typeface designs: media: cut paper and salvaged canvas. Carolyn Puzzovio gave a lecture presentation on 1st November and other speakers were Dr. Abraham Terian, Professor of Armenian Patristics and Academic Dean at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, and editor of the St. Nersess Theological Review and Peter Bain, a type designer of ‘Incipit’, New York.
• Meet the Armenian’ Illustrated lecture for the Typographic Circle at College Hill, London. November 2005.
• ‘Inspiration Armenia’ – solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Armenia, Republic Square, Yerevan. 8–28 October 2005. Exhibited artworks entitled ‘Experiments’ and based on Armenian alphabetical forms: media: cut papers; ink; gouache; pencil. (By invitation from the Armenian Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs.)
•  ‘Mesrob & Yacob, the story of the Armenian alphabet’. Conference paper at the ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) conference in Helsinki, Finland – September 2005.
•  ‘Here and there’ Staff exhibition: University of Lincoln, March 2005.
  
   

Images of Work (Click on images to expand)