Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, 2022–2023 season
The Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles is a theatrical institution founded in Brussels in 1945 (called Théâtre national de Belgique at the time) by Jacques Huisman and René Hainaux.
With Pierre Thys as their new general and artistic director for the 2022–2023 season, the theater wanted a visual identity revamp with inclusive writing as one of its core axes.
The cultural institution worked with French-Belgian collective Bye Bye Binary, formed in November 2018, which aims to explore new visual and typographic forms adapted to the French language, in particular the creation of glyphs (letters, ligatures, interpuncts, linking or symbiotic elements) with inclusive and non-binary language and writing as a starting point, field of experimentation and subject of research.
This collaboration resulted in the creation of BBB Poppins, a post-binary rendition of Poppins – originally designed by Jonny Pinhorn (with Devanagari by Ninad Kale) – augmented with inclusive glyphs.
Two optical sizes were made: a text version in which letters such as F G l t were redrawn to have diagonal terminals. These changes can also be found in letters H L R T e f r and y in the display one.
From the article on the matter:
Eugénie Bidaut and Camille Circlude have redesigned and enriched the Poppins typeface which now accompanies us on our media. Almost no more midpoint, but many new glyphs, an enriched typography, for an openness to all possibilities, and a redistribution under free license to allow pollination to continue and new imaginaries to be shared.
BBB Poppins is planned for release as part of Bye Bye Binary’s type foundry in 2023.
