Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

articles

No 6 (2025): Epigraphists at work

Numériser les hiéroglyphes : retour d’expérience en design typographique

Submitted
May 31, 2025
Published
May 31, 2025

Abstract

Through the design of a typeface for the transcription of Egyptian hieroglyphics, this article proposes to observe how the representation of epigraphic inscriptions contributes to the study of scientific practices. Hieroglyphic writing, which is figurative, is ill-suited to typographic modelling and its deeply normative nature. However, in the divergences and negotiations that arise between the different forms produced during a design project, we can observe the characteristics and transformations of the Egyptological gaze. This article explores how this vision is captured in the emergence of the typographic form. The choice of epigraphic references for the stylisation of each hieroglyph, the design gestures, and the exchanges with Egyptologists give the character its graphic and epistemological qualities and provide clues as to the articulation between the fabrication of representations and the fabrication of perspectives.