So, no response because...

• No typography instructors hereabouts?
• It's a stupid assignment?
• It's way too much work for over $5,000 full retail value in fonts and reference materials?
• No one takes me seriously anyhow?

I was briefly considering posing myself as a typography teacher ... just to get my sweaty hands on all of those fonts!

Seriously, I thought this one of the sweeter deals, lately. An echo on behalf of Nick: No one?

Typography instructors? As far as I know there aint any on the 15 Dutch 'general' art schools where graphic design is taught, not to mention the multitudes of vocational colleges etcetera… Typography instructor may be one of the most obscure professions in the world!

Hey, Graphic Design Instructor would work, too: basically anyone in an actual institution of higher learning whose students might benefit from this little exercise...and the fonts...and the specimen books and such...

Nick, I've just emailed a friend who teaches design at the university level. I hope they are interested. It seems like an interesting project for those just learning how to classify type.

Actually, Im sitting in a "Digital Letterform" class right now at the University of Oregon, so they do exist!

You probably haven't received much interest because professors are notoriously over-worked, and what you're asking for is a lot of energy!

However, it seems like a great project, good luck!

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Just two nights ago I was at Portland's Type Tuesday, having a drink with folks including two people who teach typography classes locally: one at Portland State University, and one at Pacific Northwest College of the Arts. I will point them at this thread....

T

Sounds like a great challenge. I emailed you.

I teach and I'm very interested in type classification so this caught my eye, but it might be a few semesters before I would get to teach a class for which this would be a match. Intriguing project idea, though!

Hi Nick

Very interested. Your post coincided with me having to take my eyes off the ball and attend to other matters at end of term here in the UK. This would make a great major project for a final year undergraduate student, and not just as a 'one-off'. Expect to receive email from me and a couple of friends on this – if only to ask if we're not too late!

Thanks to all who have replied. Let me add a little more information about what I think I’m looking for.

My goal is to create some kind of tool which will make navigating my font collection easier, in terms of locating the kind of font one is looking for, and being more user-friendly than a simple PDF catalog. However, I don’t have any preconceived notions as to what such a tool might look like. Thus, part of the project could include asking students to devise a classification system which is meaningful to them as potential font users/buyers. If they could come up with a widget or an interface to make navigation easier, so much the better, but it’s not a required element.

So, the font navigation database is what I would like as a minimum: any suggestions to expand the scope of the project—specimen sheet design, perhaps?—would be eagerly entertained, as would be options for offering students incentives/rewards for work beyond the main scope of the project.

I am not under any formal time constraints or deadlines: I still have some fine-tuning to do myself. But, obviously, the sooner the project gets done, the sooner it can be an important value-added component to the font collection as a stand-alone retail package. I hope this info makes things a little clearer…

Ben Archer, just sent me the link and I have emailed it out to a bunch of type nuts I know down here. So someone is bound to be interested. Sounds like a great project.

Nick, Maybe the typo in your thread headline is throwing them off :-) Typography "Insturctors"?

Doh!

Oh, @dez, why didja haveta blow the whistle?

Cuz, I just wanted Nick to have the option of editing it--also, I have screwed up many a post with a typo and felt like a kindred spirit.