Community Art ProgramCommunity Art Program
KQED is proud to display artwork from different community-focused art partners in its San Francisco headquarters in months-long rotations.
On view October 30, 2025 through May 12, 2026
Letterform Archive
The objects in this exhibition are from the collection at Letterform Archive, a San Francisco nonprofit center for inspiration, education, and community in the graphic arts. The Archive shares the joy of letters with design-curious people. It was founded by Rob Saunders, a collector of the letter arts for over 40 years, as a place to share his private collection with the public. Located in the Dogpatch neighborhood, the Archive opened to guests in 2015 and today offers hands-on access to a curated collection of over 100,000 items related to lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years of history. In addition to hosting exhibitions, public events, and courses in type design, calligraphy, and typography, the Archive serves a global community through social media, state-of-the-art photography, and publications.
Strikethrough Typographic Messages of Protest
Curated by Silas Munro and Stephen Coles
Strikethrough: (n) the penetration of ink through paper in the printing process; (v) to draw a line through text to call for the deletion of an error.
Artists have long used typography to strike through myriad forms of oppression. Their written words call communities to action and speak truth to power. This selection of posters showcases typographic anger and agency as it is seen in the streets and on the printed page. In this room, the work of trained professionals sits alongside the raw creativity of activists and engaged citizens.
Designers as protesters—and protesters as designers—rise from a wide range of racial, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds. Their audible demands are translated into visible, repeatable forms. Letters are drawn, cut, painted, and printed. Messages are disseminated via the press, digital type, and augmented reality. These objects demonstrate the immediacy that typography offers any community and cause. They show us how type gives shape to voice. And while the specific rallying cries may vary across movements and media, one refrain remains the same: the demand to speak and be heard.
For more information about Letterform Archive visit letterformarchive.org.
KQED Live event ticket holders can view the installation up to one-hour prior to events when doors open.
Art is located in the lower lobby corridor leading from the garage into the lower lobby, and in the Pub Hub near in The Commons lobby. For questions, please write to communityart@kqed.org.
PREVIOUS COMMUNITY ART INSTALLATIONS
Balay Kreative Studios (2024/25)
First Exposures (2023/24)
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (2023)
Creativity Explored (2022)