- Editions
- 2017
Catherine Griffiths (b.1966) is a designer and typographer whose practice spans graphic design, self-publishing, installations in public and private spaces, and writing on design. She lives and works in Auckland and, intermittently, Paris, is active in the international design community, and an advocate for alternative thinking. Griffiths works with artists, architects and designers, scientists and engineers, assists students, gives lectures and hosts the occasional workshop, including the typ gr ph c series. She also co-runs a small imprint, Vapour Momenta Books, the pocket-sized publishing arm of Griffiths and photographer, husband, Bruce Connew.
Select projects include the Wellington Writers Walk, a series of large-scale concrete text sculptures (2002, 2004); the curation and co-organisation of TypeSHED11, Wellington (2009); and her ongoing Vowel series. Recent works include the design of a park, Zion Hill Reserve, Auckland (2016); a bespoke display system for the New Zealand Institute of Architects; ‘A whakapapa, two lines of women, an installation drawing’, All Lines Converge, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2016/17); artist book, Body of Work, Bruce Connew (2015); and PhD dissertation, The Gentle Hand + The Greedy Eye: an everyday baroque practice in architecture, Rachel Hurst (2016).
Griffiths has twice been shortlisted on teams for the Venice Architecture Biennale (New Zealand, 2014 / Australia, for 2016). She was on the Advisory Board for the pre-biennale newspaper project and guest speaker at Typojanchi 2015, the 4th International Typography Biennale, Seoul, where she presented the fourth in her Vowel series, AEIOU—Constructed/Projected. Griffiths is keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Typography, as part of the Melbourne Art Book Fair, 2017. Her work is in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) and the National Hangeul
