Workshops Schedule

Morning: Type Design Essentials

3 one hour sessions push students through pencil sketching skills, Latin script essentials, and digital drawing basics.

Our first session puts to work the special design process that is the beating heart of typeface design. We reveal how to avoid the fatal mistake that all beginners (and even some professionals) make when sketching letters.

This ends with an intense lecture on the history of Latin letter forms, the effects of writing tools, and the balance of form and function. We will also demonstrate cutting edge research that shows how the script is based on a calligraphic system.

After more sketching, we review digital drawing. A tour of the key features of a type application will reveal the surprising differences between Bezier drawing for illustration and type. Using these techniques you will create a functional OpenType font and take home a full page of text set with your own design.

Lunchtime Bonus Session: "Types of Desire" While we eat lunch we will informally discuss typefaces that are desirable — or not.

Afternoon: Digital Type Design

After lunch we take our sketches forward into digital drawings, with detailed and personal feedback from our expert instructors.

The learning curve with type is steep, and your talent is going to be tested on some of the toughest shapes in the Latin alphabet. Fortunately, we have an ace in the hole that will help smooth things out for anyone with anger management issues.

The day ends with a critical review of the day's creations and an open question session where we will answer any question about typography that you can ask!

Day 1 Morning: Type Design Essentials

3 one hour sessions push students through pencil sketching skills, Latin script essentials, and digital drawing basics.

Our first session puts to work the special design process that is the beating heart of typeface design. We reveal how to avoid the fatal mistake that all beginners (and even some professionals) make when sketching letters.

This ends with an intense lecture on the history of Latin letter forms, the effects of writing tools, and the balance of form and function. We will also demonstrate cutting edge research that shows how the script is based on a calligraphic system.

After more sketching, we review digital drawing. A tour of the key features of a type application will reveal the surprising differences between Bezier drawing for illustration and type. Using these techniques you will create a functional OpenType font and take home a full page of text set with your own design.

Lunchtime Bonus Session: Types of Desire. While we eat lunch we will informally discuss typefaces that are desirable — or not.

Day 1 Afternoon: Digital Type Design

After lunch we take our sketches forward into digital drawings, with detailed and personal feedback from our expert instructors.

The learning curve with type is steep, and your talent is going to be tested on some of the toughest shapes in the Latin alphabet. Fortunately, we have an ace in the hole that will help smooth things out for anyone with anger management issues.

The day ends with a critical review of the day's creations and an open question session where we will answer any question about typography that you can ask!

Day 2 Morning: Refining Your Skills

The workshop continues with the most valuable aspect of a live training event: 1-on-1 personal tutorial time packed full of assisted sketching and digital drawing.

Day 2 Afternoon: Advanced Topics

The afternoon offers a range of advanced topics, such as:

Family Planning

Type families that offer a broad palette of choices are required for both intricate text typography and maximum graphic impact. To grow your single font into a family, you will see how to adjust it into both bold and light weights.

The Latin writing system has 4 sets of letters, Roman upper and lowercase and Italic upper and lowercase. You will learn how font technology handles the special nature of italics plus drawing techniques to get creative with cursive forms.

OpenType Features

A strange question comes up when non-designers hear that drawing letters is a profession: "How can you draw something new? Haven’t they all been thought of already?" What makes this so strange is that when you’re sketching and get really “in the zone,” you generate too many ideas. Today you can deliver them all to your users with the power of OpenType. We will show you how to go beyond providing stylistic alternatives to give your type mutant powers.

Cyrillic Script

We will enlighten you about modern Cyrillic and it's continuing importance.

Earning Money

Finally we will wrap up the day with a discussion about how you can earn money with your new skills.

Evening: Party!

Come relax with us after long & fulfilling days of learning! Details & location for participants.