AtypI – the Association Typographique Internationale – was founded in 1957 by the French designer and type founder Charles Peignot. Organized every year since in a new global city, Wednesday 28 October marks the opening of the 72nd AtypI Conference.AtypI, n.d.

I was an attendee and a speaker at the 2025 AtypI conference in Copenhagen when they announced the location – or rather locations – of the 2026 conference. The first leg was completed at Stanford University in California in May; the second, starting tomorrow in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Against a backdrop of officially sanctioned harassment of queer, women, and immigrants, deadly ICE raids, blatant fascist propaganda from the sitting US president and his allies, and a UAE which proudly scrapes the bottom of the Human Rights Index, the decision appeared tone-deaf, at best.

I acknowledge that a conference in Denmark also poses challenges for many visa applicants, but this was on a whole different level. Colleagues and friends – many of them sitting alongside me in the audience – would not be able to attend without jeopardising their personal security.

The Alexandra Korolkova controversy

On 6 July 2026, AtypI announced the controversial inclusion of Russian type designer Alexandra Korolkova in the Sharjah program.AtypI, 2026b. Korolkova serves as the art directorAtypI, 2026a. of the Russian type foundry ParaType, whose public and material support of the Russian state and security apparatus in their illegal war against Ukraine has drawn heavy criticism.Stepura, 2026.

In response to the news, the former vice-president of AtypI, John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks, wrote:Hudson, 2026.

The announcement also prompted a group of Ukrainian type designers, led by the Ukranian AtypI delegate Oleksandra Korchevska-Tsekhosh, to author an open letter calling for Korolkova’s removal. The letter, published 7 September 2026, quickly gathered signatures from more than 300 international professionals.Korchevska-Tsekhosh et al, 2026.

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“While we’ve been talking here, our country has expanded, for which I congratulate everyone.” Anna Yakupova, director of ParaType, celebrating the annexation of Ukraine on Telegram, 27 September 2022.

AtypI, in return, doubled down on their position. In short order, their social media profiles were weeded of critical comments, opposing voices blocked, and Korolkova ensured – in a now leaked e-mail, dated 19 September 2026 – that her presence was still wanted in Sharjah.Salnykov, 2026.

Deafening silence

It is easy to ascribe these actions to a faceless organization, but the AtypI board consists of our friends and colleagues – respected actors in a small type design community. The same is true for many of the sponsors.

The current president is Nada Abdallah, with Laurence Penney serving as vice president. In addition to them, the board consist of Eric Q. Liú, Xunchang Cheng, Borys Kosmynka, Dina Benbrahim, Rodrigo Saiani, Jordan Bell, Tetsuo Sakomura, Thomas Phinney, Shaqa Bovand, Ann Bessemans, Leonardo Vázquez, Sofie Beier, Clare Bell, and Lucas Czarnecki.AtypI, n.d.

Sponsors include companies like Adobe, Google, Monotype, FounderType, Morisawa, Font Bureau, Glyphs, Typetogether, Grapheast, University of Reading, Granshan, and the Type Directors Club.

They have all had plenty of opportunities to step down, to retract their support, or to speak up. Their failure to act makes their collective silence all the more deafening.

To date, the only public acknowledgments of the controversy includes an Instagram post by the team behind the type design application Glyphs,Glyphs, 2026. with the comment section conveniently disabled in order to “(a) not expose any of our users and (b) avoid trolls”R. E. Scheichelbauer (personal communication, 26 October 2026) and a Mastodon comment by Stephen Coles, associate curator and editorial director of Letterform Archive, who clarified that their participation was limited to the Stanford conference.Coles, 2026.

While I don’t suspect the AtypI board, nor their sponsors, of sharing his political outlook, the sole public supporter of platforming Korolkova is currently Eli Heuer, who is also scheduled to lecture in Shajrah.Heuer, 2026.

It is hard to imagine the situation getting any more embarrasing.