Adam YEO
Country of Origin: Ivory Coast
Based In: Nancy ,France
Main Medium: Among my mediums are paint, inks, engraving, calligraphy, fabric, glass, and even sound in some cases, as well as digital. The medium that I choose to work with depends on the projects I'm working on because medium contributes to both the style of the art and its meaning. I primarily use digital mediums and graphic design for the project I am working on at the moment.
About Adam
I define myself as an artist and graphic/type designer. I hold a Doctorate in Art and Design. As a researcher, my area of interest includes art and design, African languages and writing, typography, culture, and innovation. Recently, my articles have examined the representation of African graphic symbols and scripts in graphic design and explored how these symbols and scripts can be applied to modern design to inspire artists.
About their Work
I'll talk specifically about the project I'm working on within The Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (ANRT). The project involves creating a typeface for the Bété script. First of all, we must remember that West Africa is known to be the most fertile region for script inventions, with 19 scripts invented in the region between 1830 and 2002. In most cases, these recently invented scripts are still missing from Unicode.; These scripts, therefore, require further research. Bété is a syllabary comprising 448 monosyllabic pictograms, each representing a syllable to represent phonemes, created in 1952 by the Ivorian artist Bruly Bouabré (1919-2014). Bruly used his writing to transcribe tales and texts from the Bétés, thus, he wished to preserve his culture from oblivion. The lack of digital support for Bété significantly slows down its use and expansion. Hence, I decided to conduct the first study, looking at the possibility of applying Bété writing to modern graphic design, aiming to promote Bété writing through the use of graphic design. The main objective of this study was to provide designers with a methodological and theoretical basis for integrating Bété writing into modern graphic design. As a continuation of the previous study, this study aims to develop a complete typographic solution; create a font family for Bété script. This study aims to facilitate Bété script's acceptance into Unicode and continue its promotion . The results of this research will serve as a reference in future research on Bété typography design and, more broadly, will facilitate the transmission of Bété writing and facilitate its use.
