More than 20 years have passed since the first personal computers appeared. Over this time we have seen a more democratic process in the design of typographic elements, an art that was largely non-existent at that time. However, as history showed us, that fact was not enough by itself to convince Greek graphic artists to actually engage in this aspect of modern typographical design. The reason is more or less obvious, the absolute lack of meaningful research on that topic.

The years went by and the new technology (Open Type) opened new dimensions in the design of Greek typographical elements. Foreign and Greek designers are now able to include Greek characters in their fonts, and they can do that with relative ease, without having to design multiple fonts that are exclusive for each alphabet. The ability of the internet to disseminate knowledge with great speed and freedom, along with the fact that many Greek designers are now turning to schools in other countries to study, have created a new dynamic in the field of Greek typography.

The "ea" exhibition has provided us, even if it was superficial, with the capability to realize this new dynamic. However, we were troubled by the limited number of submissions by Greek designers, mainly in the Text category, but also in the other categories. We were also troubled by the fact that in some submissions there was an obvious lack of technical skills and a lack of perception of the movement and the morphology of the letters.

The judges looked for elements of originality, resourcefulness, technical artistry, quality in the details in the creation of a letter, indications on the source of inspiration and the writing materials. Finally, even though most of the submissions were excellent, Alice Savoie, a student at the University of Reading, and Tom Grace were chosen as the winners in the categories of Text and Display Typeface respectively. They both managed to satisfy the aforementioned criteria as much as possible.

Michail Semoglou