36 Days of Type 2018

In 2018, I participated in the 36 Days of Type Instagram challenge. Each year hundreds of lettering artists create their interpretations of the alphabet for 36 consecutive days. At the time when the challenge started I was working on a project to get more girls in STEM. I thought what if I could show girls some badass female role models that are changing history. Thankfully there are plenty of them around the world.

In my series, called Floral Inventors, each letter of the alphabet is devoted to a woman in STEM. I decided to use flowers to create each letter as a way to celebrate these amazing women.

F for Fiona Fairhurst - the inventor of the Speedo Fastskin swimsuit. She designs clothing for sport. She was nominated for the European Inventor of the Year award in 2009, in the Industry category.

E is for Dr. Erna Schneider Hoover who is an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which "revolutionized modern communication"

M for Mary Brush of Davenport, Iowa, who was an American inventor and one of the first American women to be granted a patent by the U.S. patent office. Her patent, granted on 21 July 1815, was for a corset. It improved on the design and was meant to "preserve the shape of the womanly figure." The Cincinnati Enquirer, in 1908, identified her as the second American woman to be granted a patent.

U for Ulrike Beisiegel, a German biochemist and university professor who in 2011 became the first woman to serve as president of the University of Göttingen, founded in 1737. Her research on liver fats and disease was honored with the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Rudolf Schönheimer Medal and an honorary doctorate. Intent on maintaining high levels of scholarship and diminishing scientific misconduct, she has served on many boards and committees, receiving the Ubbo-Emmius Medal for her commitment to good scientific practice and an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.