Here's a captivating, personal article on I Love Typography about the design process of Jeremy Mickel's first commercially available typeface. This is a very inspiring read that I wish I had been exposed to when I started out.

External link:
<ilovetypography.com/2009/03/23/the-first-ones-the-hardest/>

Awesome! The german Robotlab has trained an industrial robot to write a bible of al things... Thanks for the link, Alexandra.

Letterror is introducing the new and completely reworked ffTrixie with a nice little YouTube video. Just van Rossum on guitar.
Continuing Education has re-structured the type design classes again to make more sense for students with different skill levels and interests. This is slowly developing into a miniaturized type design curriculum in itself. Just add a calligraphy class to the beginning, the letterpress class to the end and presto: 5 semesters of intensive immersion in type!

So these are the three type design classes and their boilerplate descriptions. If you have questions please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Recommended reading for all three classes
The stroke: theory of writing by Gerrit Noordzij Introduction to type design: Hand drawn type - The Roman Letterforms
While the biggest part of today's type industry has moved into the digital domain, the underlying skills, practices and theories have remained fairly unchanged. This hands-on type design class explores the design process with a strong focus on classic drawing skills and a firm conceptual understanding of letter forms. Using pen and paper the students will be guided through two extensive type design projects complemented by a number of short exercises to practice different design methods.

Experience in calligraphy is a plus but not required. This class forms a perfect precursor for "Introduction to type design in FontLab Studio v.5".

Fall registration starts August 25th, 2008. To sign up please contact the Continuing Education department. Materials to bring

• vellum (US letter sized)
• ruler
• drop action pencil
• eraser
• black waterproof fine liner
• thick waterproof marker
• white out pen

Introduction to type design: Hand drawn type - The Italic Letterforms
In most respects this class is identical with class No.1 but deals with the italic construction exlusively.



Introduction to Digital Type Design in FontLab Studio v.5
The design and production processes of typefaces have significantly changed in the past twenty years. In this advanced hands-on workshop Hannes Famira will guide the participants step by step through the different stages of up-to-date font development. The participants will grow familiar with the software application FontLab Studio v.5 by drawing and producing their own functioning digital type faces. The topics covered will be tracing the artwork and the techniques of perfecting curves, building diacritics as well as the secrets of spacing and kerning.

Fall registration starts August 25th, 2008. To sign up please contact the Continuing Education department. Materials to bring

• sketches or other source material
• black waterproof fine liner
• thick waterproof marker
• white out pen
• digital storage medium

I have had a chance to look over Ken Barber's shoulder for a while and have witnessed the final stage of the development of the Studio Lettering collection. I am baffled by the beauty of this font family. Yesterday it has at last been made available to the public. The Studio Lettering collection is quite possibly the most ambitious Latin script project to date. The OpenType programming that went into this project is fascinating to me and clearly takes advantage of everything present day software capabilities are offering, reaching the technical outer limits. To name an example, language dependent glyphs and ligatures automatically create unique shapes the way lettering artists would customize them for specific combinations depending on the language the text is set in. Along with the three fonts House Industries offers a wealth of peripheral promo items (Mosepads, tshirts, cast iron sculptures...) that are just too beautiful. Check it out.

Update 8:18am July 9' 08:
Ok, so here are those tasteful promo items.

External link:
<www.studiolettering.com>

Pardon the old image. See more angles of our new letterpress shop here, ...and no this is not Dan in this picture.

Letterpress Printing on the Vandercook Press
I am excited to announce that this summer Dan Morris is going to teach letterpress printing at the Cooper Union. In my experience a class stands or falls with it's teacher. Dan was instrumental in bringing the Cooper Union's print shop up to snuff. He is third generation letterpress printer and probably knows everything there is to know about his black art. In my mind he is the kindest, coolest guy I have met in a long time and I am sure his class will be so much fun! He runs The Arm, a contemporary gallery, performance space and public access letterpress studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and has produced letterpress projects with such artists as NYC punk band Japanther, Berlin conceptual artist Matthias Wermke, and Philadelphia hip hop act Spank Rock. For more information see www.thearmnyc.com.

Here is the course description:

External link:
<www.thearmnyc.com>