I haven’t written much about teaching this semester — I actually have a great crop of students for the one graphic design class I’m teaching and nothing of note has arisen to write about. They are currently knee-deep (or should be!) in the process of re-branding City College. From the first time I stepped on campus, which is a terribly beautiful campus, if you haven’t seen it before, I was irked by the logo on the flags. I am hoping for some good results when they turn in the goods next week.
While they’re off working like busy bees I am plotting the Fall semester, when for the first time I’ll be teaching a Projects in Type class, in addition to Type 1 & 2. I’m quite excited. In fact, I made a little poster about it using a collage I made eons ago.
I have several possible project ideas for the class, and would like to cover as much as I can in terms of focusing on both individual letterforms as well as typesetting on a larger scale. When I took Advanced Type in undergrad, we spent a good amount of the semester developing an original typeface in Fontographer. Personally, I think this was a mistake. Type design is a wholly different subject, and trying to teach it along with typography confuses things. I do have a plan for creating an alphabet, but that will reinforce ideas about anatomy, structure, and proportion in lettering more than the formal tasks of designing type.
If you have suggestions or would like to share your own experiences with type classes, and what worked or didn’t work for you, please feel free to share them!
Brightcut doesn’t sound like a very traditional name for a typeface, but it seemed the most apt. ‘Brightcut’ is a metalsmith term—’a type of decorative engraving used on metal objects, especially those made of silver…[causing] the exposed surfaces to reflect light and give an impression of brightness.’ (Encyclopedia Brittanica).
My husband, Ed, a silversmith for Tiffany, suggested the name when looking at the telltale ‘notches’ in the interior curves of the rounds of my typeface. With the help of a master engraver at his studio, he’s been learning the art of hand engraving. And just because he’s awesome, had these little plates made for me for my birthday.
*Sorry for the iPhone photography; it’s hard to shoot shiny things.
I took a much-needed break from type this weekend and went upstate with my family instead of going to Ben Kiel’s Python workshop, which I’m sure was awesome for those who can string two tech thoughts together, which is not me.
I’m reassessing a couple of things this morning after several days of thinking about last week’s feedback. My numerals, in particular, need to be re-drawn. They weren’t mentioned in the critique, and I’m glad, because they were rushed and not at a point that was worthy of critique. I passed some inscriptional numbers on the way to Grand Central, I think on Madison Avenue, that gave me some ideas.
I also found this book, from FDR Jr’s library, at an antiques place in Hyde Park, and snatched it up for six bucks. The title is set in Lydian, a typeface mentioned more than once when looking at Brightcut, and I am intrigued by the idea of looking at Lydian for some guidance as I polish this roman weight.
Apologies, loyal readers, for not updating on Monday. Our big critique with guest stars Christian Schwartz and Chester Jenkins was last night, so needless to say I decided to (this is my M.O.) immerse myself in wholly unnecessary design tasks. Complete with fake book jackets shown in-situ, I made an 18 x 24” specimen.
Higher-res PDF here.
It went well, and Brightcut was received enthusiastically, and I got some good, specific feedback — none of which was a surprise, but it is good to get consensus around issues at this stage. Because Brightcut is so wide in its individual lowercase letters, some things just don’t work well in the system, namely the s and the a. And of course there are still some spacing issues, but what I didn’t see was that a lot of it may be fixed by reducing the space around my round characters — I had been tweaking the vertical characters in my attempts to fix the discrepancies.
As a group, we got some great feedback and pointers too. Christian had a lot of helpful things to say about proofing and designing in context, having a strong notion of who will be using your typeface and why, and not being afraid to look beyond a corporate-style superfamily when developing other weights and styles. (“Maybe your family is a roman and two kinds of italics” !!) Chester made some good points about finding the spots that define your font’s personality and then letting other letters be plainer. Perhaps the dual-quote of the evening was when Christian said, “Not every letter needs to be a special thing,” and Chester followed it up with, “it’s like kids, they’re not all awesome.”
Awesome.
Okay I don’t actually have the full Beta set we are aiming to have for tomorrow. This part, while fun in that it fleshes out the font, makes me uneasy. I feel like I’m making arbitrary decisions when it comes to numerals and punctuation. And ligatures? Does this thing even need ligatures?
Here’s where I’m at:
I feel badly that I haven’t spent much time talking about the experience at Cooper Type this term (not to mention having written nothing in awhile about teaching.) But unfortunately for this blog, my time is best spent working through the myriad challenges of designing an original typeface in a handful of weeks.
That said, we’ve had some great lectures this term, both by our excellent teacher Sasha Tochilovsky, curator of the Lubalin Center, as well as guest talks. Recently we had visual scientist Denis Pelli come speak to us about the science of legibility — studies roundly dismissed by type designers as much as type designers’ work is often dismissed by the scientific community. We also heard from Jerry Kelly from the Grolier Club about type revivals.
In just the brief time the Class of 2012 has been at Cooper Type, we’ve had guest critiques by Sumner Stone, Allan Haley, Jean-François Porchez, and Matthew Butterick, and will welcome Christian Schwartz and Chester Jenkins in just a couple of weeks’ time.
And that’s nothing to say of the workshops, worth the price of tuition alone: John Downer, Hannes Famira, Karen Charatan, Ken Barber, Sumner Stone, Ben Kiel…
I had planned to apply to KABK before the inception of Cooper Type, and as amazing as the KABK curriculum is, I am grateful to be in New York for this program. It really shows how many amazing type masters pass through here, and how they all seem willing to participate and teach wherever they can. There really is no other place on earth with such reach.
