Typographica: Undergrad, Cooper, KABK — One Student’s Road to Learning Type Design

In 2009, after 13 years as a self-employed graphic designer, I decided to abandon the professional world and go back to school — this time to pursue a field that seems related, but is an entirely separate discipline: typeface design. Read more about my journey here ...

Lena in New York

As a graduate of the Type@Cooper program I was invited to submit a specimen of my typeface Lena for an exhibition in New York. The exhibition is open to the public on October 24 through to November 17, 2012 at 41 Cooper Gallery, located at 41 Cooper Square between 6th and 7th streets. If you are in the area go check it out. More details here... Click on the image to take a closer look or here to see more of the exhibition.

Type@Cooper - Judgement Days

My amazing experience at Cooper Union included critiques from type heros Matthew Carter and Jonathan Hoefler. Here's what they had to say...

"I like that sort of gothic arch form" Matthew Carter

"I feel this really has legs" Jonathon Hoefler

Me (left) receiving a class crit with Sara Soskolne—Hoefler & Frere-Jones (right) and Sumner Stone—Stone Type Foundry (sitting)

Me presenting my typeface to the Type@Cooper class

Type@Cooper - Major Project, Lena

My major project at Type@Cooper was to design a serif typeface.
I was interested in designing a slab serif so I started out exploring some design ideas using the edged pen. I liked the contrast in the stroke the pen created when moving from a vertical stroke to a horizontal stroke while drawing the 'n'. The design of the 'n' really influenced the design of the entire typeface.
Below are snapshots of the different stages in my process.

1. Rough sketches using edged pen

 2. My control characters

3. Dummy text set using control characters

4. Extended character set for Lena

5. Lena set in mixed case and uppercase

6. Lena set 9/11

Type@Cooper - Hand Lettering

A playful day at Type@Cooper learning some hand lettering with Ken Barber from House Industries.

Type@Cooper - Caroligian Minuscules

My second project at Type@Cooper was to understand the history and structure of the minuscule forms. Once again I tried to replicate these forms this time using an edged pen and following letter forms written by Poggio in 1425.

Type@Cooper - Latin Majuscules

My first task at Type@Cooper was to understand the structure of Latin majuscules.
In order to understand how they were constructed I traced the skeleton of each letter form from an inscription made on a bronze tablet from the end of the second century BC. While tracing these shapes it was important to try and capture the individual characteristics and proportions of each form.
The challenge was to try to avoid the natural urge to formalise the shapes and make them what I think they should be rather than how they were constructed on the bronze tablet.

A sneak peak at the beautiful clock tower in the Cooper Union foundation building.

Day 1 at Cooper Union

The first of many 12 hour days started on Monday at Cooper Union.
Our first task was to setup our workstations in the studio located in the beautiful foundation building.

Type@Cooper, New York

I'm very excited to have been accepted into the typeface design summer school at Cooper Union in New York in June. Checkout Type@Cooper here. Follow my tweets from NY @7roy