Chad Reichert and Susan LaPorte have collaborated on numerous typographically inspired projects, including curriculum development, typefaces, exhibitions, and personally motivated curiosities. In these cases, projects typically begin with a visit to John King bookstore in downtown Detroit, where they often find themselves rambling through the stacks and discovering an unusual dictionary that piques their interest. Their first collaboration was a typographic compendium inspired by the dictionary Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, & Preposterous Words.
For this collaboration, they focused on "A Dictionary of Abbreviations,” compiled by Herbert John Stephenson, a lexicon of abridged organizations, auxiliaries, and a host of other amalgamated institutions. As a result, they created a project around the vernacular of logotypes, trademarks, and emblems, using the entries as inspiration. Because Professors Reichert and LaPorte are design educators, they often enjoy assigning tasks; therefore, they each determined a set of abbreviated entries for each other to design a graphic representation for each letter of the alphabet. This 186-page book is a compendium of the work they created together, yet separately, celebrating typographic design history.
- Designer
- Susan LaPorte
- Designer
- Chad Reichert
