The Recipient
Flora de Carvalho
We are so proud to recognize someone with Flora’s talent and drive to preserve her culture’s typographic history. Her story and her mission are equally inspiring, and we have no doubt she will go far in her pursuits in type design. We are delighted to present her as our next Malee Scholarship recipient.
Flora de Carvalho has been working with graphic design and typography for fifteen years. They co-founded the studios Passeio (2018–2022), TODA Oficina, and the type foundry Familiar Faces. Their first type family, Vinila, was published by Plau in 2019, and since then, they have been independently developing original projects and custom fonts for Brazilian companies. In 2021, they founded Recorte magazine, where they serve as coordinator, editor, and designer. In four years, more than 100 essays on the profession have been published on the platform. More recently, Flora has joined the Type West Online Postgraduate Program, where they have worked on type design projects such as Garment and Ursula.
The Finalists
This year The Malee Scholarship recognizes Yue Chen and Atefeh Mohammadi for their achievements and contributions to the type design industry.
By building spaces for dialogue, education, and collaboration, Atefeh Mohammadi made remarkable contributions to Persian type design extend far beyond her own practice. She has strengthened an entire community of designers, researchers, and students. Her projects, such as Quick Studio and Tehran Type Week, demonstrate how generosity and vision can transform a field, ensuring that knowledge is shared and new voices are empowered.
Yue Chen is honored with special recognition for her outstanding work in type design. As a PhD candidate at the University of Reading, she has advanced the study and digital development of the Yi script, demonstrating how type design can preserve cultural heritage while shaping contemporary visual culture.
Atefeh Mohammadi
Atefeh Mohammadi is a type designer and researcher working at the intersection of design, cognitive science, and cultural studies. Her work explores how Persian type can remain legible, rooted in tradition, yet adaptable to the digital age. Beginning with the history of Persian calligraphy, her research has expanded to readability and reading behavior in print and digital media. She has presented at international conferences, including ATypI (2020–2024) and Typewknd. Viewing type design as a problem-solving process, she combines user-centered research with the creation of lasting resources. Atefeh is the founder of Quick Studio (@quickstudioo), a platform for accessible education, and organizer of Tehran Type Week (@tehrantypeweek), Iran’s first international Persian type event. Currently, she focuses on fostering collaboration among Arabic and Persian type designers and advancing research projects. For her, type is both cultural memory and a tool for engaging readers and conveying meaning.
Yue Chen
Yue Chen is a multilingual type designer and researcher, currently a PhD candidate in Typeface Design at the University of Reading, UK. Her doctoral research focuses on the unification and digital font implementation of the Yi script, a writing system of a Chinese ethnic minority. Yue is also the translator and published author of Design, Typography etc.(Chinese edition). Her work has received multiple international design awards, including recognition from the New York TDC Awards, Morisawa Typeface Design Awards, Hiiibrand Awards, and inclusion in the Tokyo TDC Yearbook. She teaches the course Cross-Cultural Type Design and Application at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and participates in several projects funded by China’s National Arts Fund, as well as university initiatives in type and visual design. Yue has also presented at academic events hosted by institutions such as the University of Reading, Tsinghua University, the China International Conference of Chinese Characters, the Chinese Embassy in the UK, and the Academic Seminar of the Professional Committee on Chinese Character Form Information.
Special Recognition
The Malee Scholarship recognizes three Finalists who are committed to a career in type design and educating the next generation of lettering artists and type designers. This year, each finalist will receive a $2,000 grant from sponsor David Jonathan Ross that will go towards their type design education, a copy of the second edition of Designing Type by Karen Cheng, and a copy of Sharp Type Volume One.