Ann Bessemans
Belgium
ann.bessemans@pxl.be
WG Member – WG1
Position Paper
My name is Ann Bessemans and I’m a design researcher / Postdoctoral researcher and teacher/lecturer at PXL-MAD / University of Hasselt, Belgium. My main focuses are font design and typographic legibility/readability research. In my Ph.D., I dealt with the subject of type design for children with low vision. This Ph.D was supervised by prof. dr. Gerard Unger and dr. Bert Willems. The outcome of my PhD defined the next research topics: Rhythm and Legibility, Rhythm and Reading Comfort (Ph.D student Maarten Renckens), Homogeneity & Heterogeneity in letter shape and rhythm, Visual Prosody (Ph.D student Kevin Bormans). Together with Kevin and Maarten both also members of the COST E-Read action, we form the typographic research group READSEARCH.
As a research group, READSEARCH focuses on reading research. Type design and/or typography is looked at from a multidisciplinary and scientific perspective, but always with a practical attitude. The artistic practice forms next to, based on and in dialogue with experimental, but theoretically funded research a substantial share. READSEARCH provides a unique environment that brings together design researchers, typeface designers, scientists, students and stakeholders through research, courses and documentation. For the COST E-read project, we are mainly involved in WG2 and WG4.