Do you need to go to the fine art school to be a painter? you can, and you can not. I don’t believe you can go to a school and end up as an artist. However, typography, for some, is a conservative artform supposed to have rules and conditions. So, why are they not formalised that much. Why are there few schools to teach you this discipline? I don’t know. it’s a craft, it’s a skill, you can teach yourself, you can learn it from others. Why bothering. Learning is a big time process.
Is there a uni for poetry?
are there poets with Nobel prices coming from big poetry courses?
However, I have no answer but a similar questions.

A year-long masters program sounds like overkill to me - I would think one class would be enough to learn what you need to know about type history/design.

For myself I have no formal training in typography, but was lucky enough (I think) to learn design just before the advent of the computer. You really had to know your type in those days, because mistakes were very expensive to correct. Also the number of fonts to choose from was far far fewer. I was also lucky to have a boss when I started out who took a real interest in making sure I understood type. But, I’m a graphic designer, not a type designer.

I have always thought that a graphic design degree is basically a waste of money.

Actually, I’ve always considered getting a degree in graphic design the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done. It certainly wasn’t a waste of money.

Also, unless one devotes years to teaching type design to oneself—and even here, one needs input, feedback, and interaction with one’s peers and mentors (conferences and the internet are the best ways now to accomplish this)—several academic courses are necessary. A single, one semester class isn’t going to cut it, and I doubt that it ever has.

A one-year master’s degree isn’t the only way, but it is one of the fastest. The most positive things that one might learn at Reading or the Hague are quick production methods. And how to use Python. People hiring young type designers are often looking for this skill more than any other. You can teach this to yourself as well, but it’ll take more time that way.

A degree—like it or not—also acts as a badge of authority (depending on where one got it, of course).

I did not have any formal training in type design, but I have a huge amount of respect for what Gerry does at Reading (the only programme with which I am personally familiar) and rather wish that I had spent such a year at the beginning of my career. I think the principle value of such a course is that it packages the information that one needs and compresses the experience of designing a typeface family in a structured timeframe, while at the same time allowing for much more freedom of exploration than working to a commercial deadline. I’m very much aware, as someone who is largely self-taught and who learned on the job, that it has taken a long time to fill various holes in my knowledge, and some still exist: learning on the job, you learn only what you need to get the particular job done. In a programme with a structured curriculum, you are more likely to learn more things in a short period of time.

My only formal training related to type design: evening classes in calligraphy.
If it’s training you want, rather than education, the workshops at TypeCon, ATypI, Typotechnica, etc., are useful.

I also studied graphic design before the days of the personal computer, and I am very glad to have gone to school. You meet other people that share your interests and are exposed to different points of view, something you might not get if you are studying on your own. Also, I feel that school gives you the chance to try things out before going out into the real world, working on projects you might not have a go at otherwise.

I’ve met a lot of graphic designers and there are great divisions of opinion on how worthwhile people found the actual degree. I am living proof that it’s not impossible to miss out on a piece of paper and to learn your craft so my opinion is biased. Three of four years without commercial pressure to experiment within though, aren’t something to be sniffed at.

The difference between type design and graphics are that there are significant fewer places in which this craft can be learnt on the job, and therefore you have to teach yourself. Perhaps at the end of the day, drive is the only thing that matters. If you want something badly enough, one way or another you will achieve the things you want to.

I agree with you on that last point, Dux. Drive certainly matters. On the other hand, I too have been thinking about taking some calligraphy or type design classes. At the last TypeCon I took a one-day workshop with Dennis Pasternak and got a lot out of it. I feel that when it comes to type design, there is only so much you can get from books.

I am also curious about the program at Reading, but for me that would mean dropping everything and moving to England for a year. Maybe someday I’ll be prepared to do that.

I too am self-taught re type design, and, like others, understand that there are many things still to learn. What can be taught is how to use the tools, whether it is the software program, especially stuff like Quark, InDesign, FontLab, Fontographer, etc., or the pencil. But drive is what you need, without question.
Jordan

I guess my skepticism of design school is that since design is essentially an applied art, those 2-3 years of “freedom of exploration” tend to produce both a portfolio full of absurdly impractical designs and a bunch of graduates who don’t want to be told no you can’t use 6 colors plus die cuts plus 3 different kinds of paper. Plus they expect to be handed the keys to the castle rather than starting at the bottom designing flaps for a book jacket like the rest of us.

It is not the same as going to school for, say, painting where I think students should be encouraged to push their minds as far as they can without commercial constraints (altho that said, MFA programs have become trade schools for the chelsea gallery system nowadays anyway).

I confess I don’t know much about the type programs (Reading, the Hague) they may be much more valuable than Pratt or Parsons.

Learning the tools are one thing, learning what to do with them is another.

I’ve got nothing against experimentation, but in terms of graphic design especially, there is an inescapable constraint of commercial viability that needs to be operated within. I tend to see folios that fluctuate between the unfeasible and the flat and cliched. Balance and perspective are the ideal I supose.

Also, I think the ego you mention is probably more to do with youth than anything else.

> a portfolio full of absurdly impractical designs and a bunch of graduates who don’t want to be told no you can’t use 6 colors plus die cuts plus 3 different kinds of paper. Plus they expect to be handed the keys to the castle rather than starting at the bottom designing flaps for a book jacket like the rest of us

Heh heh, I’ve known people like this and maybe I’ve been guilty of some of these things myself at one time, but let’s give design school a chance — you can also learn what it means to think conceptually, or the history of art and design, too.

Sorry for the slightly off-topic comment, but I just had to say that.

:-)

No need to apologise, it’s not off-topic in the least.

Jonathan Hoefler was self-taught and he’s pretty good at what he does. I think it all boils down to determination. I remember reading an interview on Mr. Hoefler (EYE magazine I think)and he said that he was probably the only fifteen year-old with a subcription to U&Lc magazine. I’d like to think a large part of the success he has today is due to his determination in wanting to be a type designer.

How long has it taken the self-taught to produce the first face that they look back on as fully successful?