Rathna Ramanathan is the Head of Central Saint Martins and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of the Arts. Previously she was Dean of Academic Strategy at Central Saint Martins, and before that Dean of School of Communication at the Royal College of Art.

Originally from Chennai, India, Rathna works in communication design, particularly within a South Asian context. Her practice is fuelled by a love for, and lifelong interest in typography and languages, and a belief that communication is a fundamental human right.

As a graphic designer and typographer, she is best known for her work with Tara Books, an independent collective of writers, designers and book designers who favour a non-hierarchical mode of functioning informed by feminism and other movements for social justice. With Tara Books, she has co-authored and published multiple books, many of which have won international design awards. The most prominent, In the Land of Punctuation, has been translated into multiple languages, featured in multiple exhibitions, and inspired a performance in South Korea. She lead the book design and bilingual typesetting on the Murty Classical Library of India, a 100-year, critical, postcolonial, and premodern literary publishing project.

Click on Practice is Critical: Rathna Ramanathan to open the resource.