In this one-year research project, Mateo Broillet investigates the notion of typeface revival as a critical contemporary type design practice. Taking the Belgian context as a laboratory, the research starts from a never-implemented road-signage typeface designed by graphic designer Michel Olyff in the 1970s.

Moving beyond the technical reconstruction of a typeface, the project explores what reviving a letterform can reveal about the social, political, and ideological dimensions embedded in typography. Through archival research, interviews, and contextual analysis, Broillet examines how a revival can function both as a contemporary design practice and as a tool for researching visual culture.

The research asks what it means to revive a typeface, and what exactly is being revived in the process. By bringing a historical typographic proposal into dialogue with the present, the project explores how letterforms carry histories, imaginaries, and cultural meanings, and how these might be reconsidered through contemporary type design.