Ayasha Khan’s clean design investigates the evolution of information, from medieval script to emojis

When attempting to summarise her practice, Ayasha Khan tells us that “most of my research focuses on the frustration that typography can bring”. She often muses on questions surrounding the changing ways in which humanity visually translates information, like “How can plain text translate any emotion?” and “How can we recognise ourselves in small rounded yellow faces?”.

To visualise such investigations, Ayasha can be found collecting images of medieval art, script and initials, with which she then creates an “ornamental glitch” by passing them through digital software – often scanning and adding filters – and altering their characteristics. “I like the accidents those techniques offer,” Ayasha identifies. Ayasha's approach is inspired by figures that are challenging and playing with established modes of typographic expression, like Jean Alessandrini and his 1980 typographic codex classification and Robert Massin, a pioneer of typographic hijinks. Currently, Ayasha is exploring ways in which her unique vision can be expressed in editorial mediums.