Exploring the use of type in recent art practice, the Black Market Type and Print Shop is a collection of 20 fonts culled from contemporary art publications. Picking up on the groundwork laid by appropriation art in the Eighties, these types are a byproduct of art production extracted for a second use, but without modification or addition. All of these fonts have been created without the permission of the artists, and their use is limited to the exhibition. (While the project is called a black market, none of the fonts are available for purchase.)

All of the types are hand-drawn by the artists with only one or two exceptions, and all are readable letterforms except two: the General Idea AIDS logo-type infects the entire typeface, and David Shrigley's "dingbats," a collection of symbols drawn by the artist. A loose selection criteria for this resource was to omit artists employing existing typefaces, or borrowing from other sources. It was also limited to type appearing within a single artwork (or related series) rather than written correspondence or other informal output by the artist.