This is an excellent question. If I were taking such a class, I would want to things: experimentation, and I would also want to be taught FontLab properly.

I'm a big fan of many short assignments, not one big project. I think that one big project is silly in your probable time frame anyway, since one can't exactly design a text face in a semester. Plus, if one is a novice, a text face as first ever font is probably an unlikely proposition.

So, make them look for found type. Make them edit old fonts. Maybe they could digitize somethin? Old wood type or handwriting? Or, make them create something installation-like that needs site specific typography to make it work. Let them find something that inspires them. Gravestones always inspire me� but some friends of mine look at grafitti. Who knows?

One thing that you really need to be clear about, in your own mind and in communication to students, is that 'digital font-making' is software development. As one of the MA students in type design at Reading said at the end of the introductory lecture: 'So it isn't all about drawing beautiful letters?' No. It isn't. 90% or more of what I would teach in such a course would be technical, not creative.

But *lettering* is not technology. (Sometimes it isn't even *design* either, but that is another question you will need to ask yourself and another balance you will have to reach). One one semester course is VERY different from a one year course at Reading. I would not spend 90% of your teaching time dealing with technology if I were teaching your class. Maybe 50%, though.

All of the technological skill in the world is not going to give anyone a good idea. Unless your students all want to end up as type designers, programming and computers are probably more of means to an end.

Right?

A few random thoughts.

Type design is a big, diverse, multidisciplinary effort. I don't envy someone trying to squeeze all the history, graphic design, geometry, software design, and legibility research into one intro class (or two).

I feel like I've learned the most by studying old masters. Zapf of course, largely because he's so articulate in expressing his design philosophy, but also Morris Benton, Eric Gill, and Harry Carter's excellent book on early types.

Tschichold has also written a lot, but I'm frankly not that huge a fan. He strongly expresses many opinions, but is weak in backing those up.

Doing proper hinting could be a class by itself (especially the TrueType flavor, which is much more like programming than the Type1 approach). I personally feel that hinting will increasingly be relegated to niche applications. It's no longer relevant for printing, and antialiased font rendering technology and high resolution displays are making it less important for displays as well. (this is not to denigrate the marvellous work that John has done with the new ClearType faces, which is as impressive technically as it is artistically). But you will definitely want to think about how much time should go into that aspect.

Spacing is critically important and under-taught. I highly recommend in particular Chapter 10 of Tracy's "Letters of Credit".

One possibly unifying question for such a class: what separates a good font from a bad one? That is of course a deep question, but I do believe it is possible to start answering it in a classroom context.

I personally find the issue of classifying typefaces deathly dreary. It's one thing to be aware of history (like knowing that Caledonia was derived from Scottish sources), and another to endlessly debate whether Perpetua should be considered transitional or modern. If it were me teaching, I wouldn't waste time on it.

I don't think that big projects are necessarily bad, especially collaborations. Check out the story of Andr� Gürtler�s Basel class project yielding Egyptian 505 (it's in Visible Language 2.1). However, it's probably going to be easier to coordinate small projects, so a big collaboration may well be too ambitious.

Best of luck!

>Check out the story of Andr� Gürtler�s Basel class project yielding Egyptian 505 (it's in Visible Language 2.1)

I'm not going to be able to access a copy of VL anytime soon, and a quick search on the net didn't turn up any real info on the face, only where it is sold. Can I get the skinny on the backstory here?

Alas, that particular issue of VL didn't survive the Great Purge when I moved from Virginia to California. Here's the abstract tho:

In 1965 the Visual Graphics Corporation organized an international competition for new typeface designs. The author directed his typography class at the Kungstgewerbeschule, Basel, Switzerland, in designing a class-project entry: Egyptian 505. The students' training for type design is described together with the specific development of Egyptian 505 for photocomposition. Art school education for script and type design is discussed.

And see:

http://www.stbride.org/conference2003/proceedings2003/phototype.html

Dan, Amy's message identified two courses, one on lettering & design, and one on 'digital font making'. My comments were in reference to the latter.

Any such course that underestimates the importance of technical knowledge, understanding and quality isn't doing the students any favours. They might as well have a second course on lettering, which will do them more good if the goal is to develop creative ideas. If the goal is to learn how to make digital fonts, then technical knowledge is, in fact, most of the subject matter. Font making is, as I say, software development, and should be taught as such. It was formerly a draughting and mechanical trade, and was taught as such.

Now, it may be that Amy has mischaracterised what she has in mind by referring to it as 'digital font making'. If the goal is develop typeface designs using digital tools, that should not be confused with the totality of making fonts. If I were teaching font making, per se, I would be inclined to completely ignore the design aspect, and have students work with rough or analogue data for an existing design and go through the steps of manufacturing a high quality digital font.

Sorry, John, I mis-read the post and thought that it would be either/or decision.

There are a bunch of different aspects to all of this: art, craft and technology.

The lettering and design course should be a prerequisite to the digital font-making course, IMO. Some other typography course probably ought to be a prereq for the lettering and design course, too. This ought to cover them for an understanding of the evolution of type designs over time, among other things.

Besides the artistic aspects, the lettering and design course would still need to cover a big chunk of the "craft," including the many human/optical principles of type design: overshoots, vertical vs. horizontal proportions for both letters and strokes, counters and notan, and so on. Although you can cover spacing here, you'll need to do spacing and kerning in the next course, too.

For the digital font-making course, you can then concentrate on the things that make this distinct from lettering and design. This mostly means the technology and the tools. These are critical if the student is to make actually functional fonts. At the very least they need to learn about outline construction, point placement and frequency, and so on. You'll also need to cover different outline formats (from a practical point of view, including differences in editing and hinting). Speaking of which, at least a nod ought to be given to hinting (though I doubt you could get into it fully in a single semester class).

For books, you could consider both of Leslie Cabarga's recent works: the Logo Font & Lettering Bible, and Learn FontLab Fast.

Cheers,

T

Thanks for everyone's comments. Thomas, it's uncanny, but you've pinned down exactly what I have in mind, down to the textbooks!

Yes, the students must have had a basic typography class beforehand (and that's where they'd get their info on history and classification of typfaces and anatomy of letterforms). Yes, the lettering class wold concentrate on the art and craft of it. Yes, the digital class would concentrate on the technology.

The only thing that where I differ is that I won't make the design class a pre-req to the digital class because we have students who are concentrating on the digital aspect of design (i.e., production) and I'd like to make it accessible to them. Also, it would allow us more scheduling flexibility. They will ikely be offfered as consecutive half-semester courses, which, unfortunately, is only enough time to get their feet wet. But ya gotta work within the system ya got.

The point of the design class would be to stimulate creativity, to develop the eye and the eye-hand coordination, to develop the appreciation for details and to guide them toward developing a sense of their own creative direction. I do intend to spend a lot of time teaching them to discriminate between successful typefaces and not, successful letterforms and not.

I am still considering which types of hand lettering to include in that class:
- sketching with chisel pencil
- calligraphy, probably with chisel marker
- brush lettering, probably with brush marker
- built-up letters (not the highest priority for the creative process, I think)

For total newbies, which would you go with?

As for the digital class, I am thinking that we'll start with discussing a little bit of history, then get into formats and platforms. Then I'd have them open some existing fonts, looking under the hood so to speak. And I'd show them how to digitize a font (which is so easy with ScanFont, now!) Then we'd spend the rest of the time building an original creation (or a font from a found source). I would let them find their own inspiration, but Dan's idea of something site-specific is a grand one!

In both classes, they will be required to keep a scrapbook of found type that inspires them. I should probably send them out with cameras to collect type around town. I am also thinking of field trips to local designers and possibly bringing our letterpress instructor in for a day so they can work with lead type.

I have to look into getting a 25-seat license from FontLab. Of course, I'll contact FontLab directly about that, but does anyone know off-hand if it can use KeyServer?

Also, do you folks know any type-design instructors who might be willing to talk to me?

Thanks again!

Amy

A font is a little machine. Lettering is not type. As far as I'm concerned "found type" is if you bump your foot on a drawer of Baskerville left on the sidewalk. Or maybe a Font Folio that falls off a truck and hits your head. Some letters that happen to be next to each other is not type.

--

Amy, I think the reason you have a tough job ahead of you is the same reason type design is so fascinating (at least to some people): the duality of it. You can't start the journey without expression, but you can't get anywhere without technique.

I think the two big factors here are:
- What balance you want to strike between theory and practice. This should probably depend on the thrust of your college as a whole, since students who go to a college -hopefully- do so based on that college's "nominal" balance appealing to them.
- How much time you have to teach what you can.

In case it might help, below is the provisional syllabus of a type design night class (14 weekly classes, 3 hours per class) that I've proposed giving at ArtCenter - it looks like they might offer it next Spring, but I'd still have to get at least 8 students to sign up... Wish me luck!

"
INTRODUCTION To TYPEFACE DESIGN

Educational Objectives
This course is intended to bring out the typeface designer in the student, by laying both theoretical and practical foundations for further learning. Through individual attention, the student's talents and skills will be applied towards: an understanding of why new fonts are created; the ways they have been made in the past; the best ways to make them today; the difference between text and display typefaces; the differences between other lettermaking disciplines (e.g. calligraphy, lettering) and type design; optical illusions and effects; and other fascinating aspects of the craft that will motivate deeper exploration.

Scope of Work
Sketching and rendering letters; using software (Fontographer or FontLab) to digitize letterforms, via scanning & tracing as well as directly on the computer; design by emulation of some existing typeface styles; beginning the design of a new typeface, including application of spacing/kerning; creating test sheets and a simple specimen.

Course Components
- Reasons to design new typefaces.
- Different philosophies of letterform design; pros/cons.
- Terminology, historical and technological.
- Differences between handwriting, calligraphy, epigraphy, lettering, and type.
- The design medium: paper & pencil, computer screen, or both?
- Digitizing, including scanning, cleanup, tracing, and fidelity issues.
- Software overview; strengths and weaknesses of processes.
- Observing and critiquing existing typefaces.
- How we read, and how that affects type design.
- Display versus text type, and other dualities.
- The importance of optical compensation/correction.
- Printing digital type via photopolymer letterpress.

Grading Criteria
Participation in learning, including terminology, theory and practice; formative critical evaluation of existing typefaces, including self-motivated research; creation of a prototypical typeface design, and its specimen; acquiring ideas for further learning from the creative experience.

Recommended Reading/References
Anatomy of a Typeface, by Alexander Lawson
Letters of Credit, by Walter Tracy
The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst
Fonts & Logos, by Doyald Young
"

Although I'm a theory guy, I think it's important to have one practical objective for a "formative" class like this: it focuses people, and makes them feel like they've accomplished something. For the class above, my plan is for each student to end up with a semi-formal specimen of a half-done font - something they can show to others for feedback (very important), something to build on.

> I am still considering which types of hand lettering to include in that class:

Whatever you do, please do convey to them that type design is not about the tool, or even the maker: it's about the user. It's a craft, a service if you will.

That said, you need tools to make things, and I think it's important to realize that some people have certain affinities for certain tools just like some tools have affinities to produce certain kinds of designs. Some people prefer paper & pencil no matter what, others will choose the rendering medium depending on the design, or will even make the transition from sketches to beziers depending on that. For example, for a highly constructed font it isn't worth drawing much on paper first, while the more organic the design the later most people (among those who use paper at all) will move from the paper to the software.

I guess this type of flexibility goes hand in hand with design being the art of balancing compromises.

hhp

Uh oh. That may be the longest posting Hrant ever wrote that I agreed pretty close to 100% with. This is one of the 7 signs of the apocalypse. Please be on the lookout for raining frogs.

T

8 people? That shouldn't be hard! Hell, I'd take the class if I lived within a travelable distance�

Not sure to agree to all what has been say here, I can add, with more than 10 years of experience in type design courses, that what is the key to me, specially in such level, for graphic designers is not technical side but how to design letterforms.

Despite technical side is a key for professional type designers as many here, its not a big issues for people in graphic design courses and its not because you know how it work technically that you became a great type designer. Its really two different things.

In graphic design school, students learn how to play with anatomical drawings, nature drawings and to play with geometrical forms such squares, circles and so on. Its very rare when students have any courses on how letters are built and for such things, there is not better way than calligraphy to understand the structure of letterforms. Well, calligraphy have really no use if there is no strong connection between how you teach it and how to relate all the time to typeface design. Its the key.

For the rest, its only details ;)

On side note, I move to Dubai tomorrow to conduct latin type design workshop, we expect as usual to post only everyday some stuff students will do in 4 days: http://www.porchez.com/ateliertypo/?c=dubai+workshop

> I move to Dubai tomorrow

Wow! Have fun.

hhp

Amy, you may also consider contacting Leslie Cabarga at the LLB website, he is frequently in San Francisco and may wish to 'sit-in' on your course or help you define a curriculum from his book if you were planning on buying them in bulk for your classes. http://www.logofontandlettering.com/

Best,
Stuart :D

Hrant ranted:
> As far as I'm concerned "found type" is if you bump your foot on a drawer of Baskerville left on the sidewalk...

Okay, so does that mean you are opposed to students keeping a scrapbook of type letterforms? Please 'splain.

Your outline is very interesting. Ours are much more formally-defined but yours is still very helpful.

I understand the duality of it. In the lettering class I plan on giving them a foundation in calligraphy and other forms of expression through lettering. Then, in the font-making class, they will concentrate on developing technique by building a digital font.

This means that you would have to take both classes to get a taste of the whole process. It's kind of like learning human sexuality by studying men for 8 weeks then studying women for 8 weeks!

So why do it this way? It's likely to be the only we'll ever get to offer it. It's a scheduling and pre-reqs thing.

Thanks, Jean and Stuart for your comments. I think I will contact Mr. Cabarga...

Oh no! A frog just hit my window! Gotta go hide in the cellar with a bible (uh oh, do I have one?).

(p.s. Good luck, Hrant!)

> does that mean you are opposed to students keeping a scrapbook

Not at all - quite the contrary. I guess it mostly means I'm terminologically anal. Or you could say I don't like it when confused terminology is a manifestation of actual conceptual confusion. Let me explain: some people think a font is a bunch of pretty black shapes that unfortunately have to have some default sidebearings given to them since they have to end up next to each other. To me this view can never result in a "real" font. You instead have to see the whole as a "machine" that generates notan (a Japanese term meaning the relationship and unity of black and white). The point here being that when you equate a sequence of letters that you see in the street with "type" (even if it's from a font and not hand-lettered) then you're missing the point. I guess just call it "found forms" (they don't actually have to even be letters to be interesting, although I guess you don't want people going crazy with the shapes they collect, so some restriction helps) to avoid pissing off crazies like me. Now that was a rant. :->

> Ours are much more formally-defined

It might actually help me to see that, assuming you're allowed to share.

hhp

amy,
this may be completely out of the scope of your proposed courses, but for a digital type design course i'd like to at least gloss over tools for developing opentype. in particular i think learning the basics of Microsoft's VOLT and Adobe's OT FDK would be useful. Those are the things i'm wanting to learn next, but may be a bit more advanced than you want to go for an intro course??? (then again maybe not) just my two bits worth.

I guess one has to ask the question... Is it a digital type DESIGN course? Or... a digital type ENGINEERING course?

Design is design and engineering is engineering, sometimes they are done by the same person, but they are not the same thing.

two new courses for our department: one in lettering + design, one in digital font-making.

my suggestions were for a course in digital font-making, not a lettering & design course

Amy, does the email address in your Typophile profile work?

hhp

The area of course design is fascinating on many levels. As it happens what you're talking about is a constant in my working life; that is perhaps exactly why I would find it difficult to summarise all the considerations in a post here. I can hopefully contribute something by making available a couple of the documents on our student-only VLE: the brief guidelines and the marksheet for the practical work students submit for the MA Typeface Design at Reading; keep in mind, however, that these are distributed within lengthy explanatory sessions, accompanied by previous student submissions -- so they may not be very transparent.
They are here; halfway down, left hand side of the page, under MATD practical