Letterspace 50

Since 2018, letterspace.amsterdam has served as a platform for Amsterdam’s local letterform culture, dedicated to expanding the ways we think about communication, typography, and the playful possibilities of letterforms. Initiated by three type designers, the project emerged from a desire to move beyond individual practice and create connections between people who approach type as both a tool and a medium. Through a continuous lecture programme rooted in Amsterdam, letterspace has become a place for new voices, unexpected perspectives, and interdisciplinary exchange.

Published on the occasion of the initiative’s first fifty events, Letterspace 50 brings together contributions by former speakers, who were invited to reflect on the time passed since their lectures through essays, newly developed work, visual experiments, or excerpts from analogue and digital sketchbooks. Mirroring the openness of the lecture series itself, the publication unfolds as a heterogeneous collection of ideas, processes, and positions, demonstrating typography not as a fixed discipline, but as a constantly shifting cultural landscape. The book was designed by two former members of the 530 Type Club Arnhem and extends the publication’s communal spirit into its visual form.

Located in the historic centre of Amsterdam, De Buitenkant is a small yet widely respected independent publishing house known for its carefully crafted editions spanning books on books, poetry, essays, and socially engaged nonfiction. Central to its practice is a close attention to design, translation, and production. Whenever possible, publications are realised in house using the publisher’s one colour workshop press, including Letterspace 50, whose material presence reflects the intimate and hands on approach of De Buitenkant’s publishing philosophy.

Letterspace 50

Publisher: Uitgeverij De Buitenkant
Editors: Edgar Walthert
Design: Kuan-Ting Chen & Kasper Quaink
Release: March 2026 
Format: 12 × 16.5 cm
Volume: 448 pages
Language: English
Printing: produced in-house at De Buitenkant’s workshop press
Workmanship: sewn binding, hardcover
ISBN: 978-90-83420-55-4
Price: €28.– (DE)

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