The saisai 2020: Workshop boldly started with Jeonghyo’s Letters Brought to Life—Life.js to make ‘life on digital space’ through text-based programming, it did not deal with traditional typography or visual design. It was followed by Just Project’s Reviving再生 Letters—My Face, My Use that revives obsolete letters to develop ones with totally different uses or functions and; Hezin O’s Mutated變異 Letters—Mutation in which participants make drawing tools through arbitrary aesthetic sense and work on drawings under certain conditions. Considering COVID-19 prevention, the events were carried out six times on a very small scale with 7–15 people. I wanted participants to enjoy the process rather than the result and imagine and explore letters and life together.

Some may have found saisai 2020–2021 somewhat confusing this time as it stressed stories with keywords such as millennials, environmental issues, the Internet, media art, and living things, rather than dealing with letters and traditional methodology. Typography is a tool and methodology generally used by graphic designers. As the term janchi means a party, Typojanchi is naturally considered as a ‘typography feast’ and it also tends to be perceived as a feast that graphic designers organize and enjoy themselves at. Typographic activities are to beautify and make letters and information more legible on mobile messengers or email, and everyone is doing this in their own way—designers as well as non-designers. Today it is undeniable that new factors have come to be frequently used in this process, such as emojis and animations, which can be regarded as part of typography. I did not want to restrict the scope of visitors to this feast to graphic or typeface designers only, and supposed that it would need to reflect the broadening horizons of Typojanchi.

The posters and screens of this saisai feature stuff that looks like disassembled or recombined bodies. A subject matter like ‘bone and flesh’ symbolically displays typographic notions even though it does not directly handle types or layout. I wished to share that idea through the poster series that headline drawings, not letters, stirring the imagination; web pages for event information and registration; and many different designs on the video screen as well.