February 2012
3 posts
Week 4 Check-in
After some great feedback last week, I got into a rhythm over the past several days of making consistent my stem widths and evaluating how heavy my regular weight should ideally be. I’m still hoping to make this a text face, aiming for an ideal size of around 10 or 12 (the latter being, probably, more realistic.)
I’m having an ass of a time drawing the ‘s’, but...
4 tags
Take 6 / Week 3
After a rough week I think I may be on to something with this. We’ll find out tonight.
4 tags
Second Term, Fresh Semester
After several (too many?) weeks off, I am back teaching and learning type. We kicked off the Cooper Type semester with a workshop led by the awesome Hannes Famira, where we learned the Noordzij method of sketching translational typefaces—otherwise referred to as the “scribble technique”.
I had taken a FontLab course eons ago with Hannes through Cooper Union Continuing Ed, where he...
January 2012
2 posts
Imaginary Alphabet no. 6: Jada
It’s finally back from the printer! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Imaginary Alphabets, it’s an on-going personal project that “fills in the blanks of found lettering.” It is a single format—a booklet of sorts, that folds out to an 11x17 / A3 poster. Jada, the newest alphabet, is based on sheet music from a 1918 jazz standard, and is the first to have...
December 2011
4 posts
6 tags
Typefaces and Student Work
My syllabus, in every type and design class I teach, is clear: I will not accept work that uses pirated or stolen fonts. I don’t think that looking the other way on this issue for ‘the sake of learning’ or any other excuse I have heard is doing students any favors. And it’s clear that if a student thinks it’s okay while in college, their behavior will likely continue...
3 tags
Reviving Howland
Last night marked our last class of the first term of Type@Cooper, as we presented our ‘final’ revival typefaces to the illustrious Sumner Stone and Allan Haley. With a scant 7 minutes of crit time per student, it was remarkable that our guests were able to offer such thoughtful observations.
Here is the specimen I created.
November 2011
7 posts
5 tags
Monday Morning Revival Check-in (11/28)
Last week in class I was surprised to discover that I’d drawn some alternate characters I have zero recollection of drawing. (They were bad.)
This week is our last big push before our final critique of the term on 12/6. And just to add to the suspense, Jesse told us last week that we will be joined next Tuesday by Sumner Stone and Allan Haley. It totally reminded me of MasterChef or...
3 tags
Monday Morning Revival Check-in
I end up working on my Cooper Type work later at night, more often than not, because my days are occupied with juggling other commitments. It’s an interesting way to work because I have more clarity in the mornings, but I can churn through things faster at night. So Monday mornings, I check in to see how (what) I did during the witching hour.
Some screenshots of some metrics windows:
...
4 tags
The Use of Moveable Type
‘Typography’ is a word that gets used pretty freely to mean a lot of different things that aren’t exactly typography. Yesterday, @okaytype tweeted, “What is worse: not knowing the difference between Type and Lettering or not knowing the difference between Typography and Type Design?”
I’m not much of a purist. I have strong opinions but usually lack the...
5 tags
John Downer, Day 2
John Downer’s workshop for Cooper Type taught several integral considerations for developing a typeface. Beginning with basic spacing techniques, then moving into creating basic bitmap letterforms, the class was tasked with continual assessment from a distance. Both by stepping across the room, and using a reducing glass, this taught us to observe simultaneously: proportion, mass, and the...
5 tags
Cooper Type: John Downer
About to start Day 2 of John Downer’s excellent workshop for the Type @ Cooper program. Yesterday, seven hours flew by as we spaced shapes and went über-analog designing basic bitmap letters with pencil on paper. So far, it’s been really applicable to what we’re working on, and I spent another four hours at home last night working on the revival. Here’s a pic of one of my...
3 tags
Cooper Type, Week 6
All systems go on the revival project. I chose a typeface called Howland I found in an 1898 American Type Founders specimen book. I was looking for something that wouldn’t leave too much open to interpretation—after all, we’re supposed to just be learning with this thing—and I didn’t want to get precious about it. It turns out that what I had thought was going to be pretty straight-forward totally...
Lubalin Lectures: Jonathan Hoefler
I made a terrible mistake once: in the text of the my third Imaginary Alphabet I spelled Jonathan Hoefler’s name, Hoeffler. I must’ve been so excited about that fl ligature that I went ahead and made it an ffl. As per usual I mailed off that edition of the alphabet to the H&FJ studio before realizing what I’d done. I met him not too long after that incident, and one or two...