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Our doctoral students come from all over the world to study with us, attracted by the Department’s range and depth of expertise in typography and graphic communication.
Students embark on research projects that encompass topics of inspiring diversity, employing a spectrum of empirical, archival and practice-informed methods.
You'll have experienced supervisors who are research leaders in typography and graphic communication.
All are expert in research and active in practice. They can help you raise your academic profile through publishing, presenting your research, and collaborating on special projects.
Over 92% of our research was judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent in the most recent research excellence framework (REF) assessment (Times Higher Education Institutions ranked by subject, based on its analysis of the last research excellence framework (REF) 2014).
Students often work with our collections and archives, including the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection, the Non-Latin Type Collection and many others.
Our staff have a wealth of knowledge in the material history of our field. We encourage projects that engage with designed artefacts to define new histories through analysis and interpretation.
In 2016, Vaibhav Singh was recognised as a PhD Researcher of the Year finalist at Reading. After gaining his PhD, Vaibhav joined the Department’s research staff as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow.
Here he discusses his PhD research into how rapid advances in technology across the twentieth century have shaped the design of typefaces in India.
Titus Nemeth
PhD student 2014, specialist in Arabic and multilingual type design and typography
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As well as receiving support from your supervisors within the Department, you'll have access to wider academic and pastoral support services provided by the University.
We encourage you to seek out links with researchers outside the Department, and build partnerships in order to gain real-world insights that are relevant to your work.