Sumner Demonstrating Calligraphic Forms

Monday started our foray into the broad nib pen and calligraphic letterforms. Working off of a Poggio manuscript, we first copied the two magnified sheets we had, and then went on to perfecting writing lowercase forms with a fixed nib angle to create the thicks and thins present in handwritten text. I was never one for slow writing and never really thought I had the hand for calligraphy (although coincidentally my father practiced calligraphy during his college years as a means of some income on the side) but after watching Sumner’s methodical way of writing I ended up really enjoying calligraphic writing and seeing the forms that were created with a heavy influence of the tool at hand.

Example of my Calligraphy

Tuesday was continued drawing for the main part of the day and ended with short meetings to discuss our main personal typeface projects. I was pretty stressed discussing my final project as choosing a style of letterform immediately dictates all the other decisions down the road. I loathe making these big choices and knowing that the next three weeks will be dictated by whatever I select now makes it incredibly difficult to narrow down the pool.

Calligraphic Selections from the Class (mine are at the top)

Wednesday completely shifted our thinking with a full day workshop with Ken Barber from House Industries. I knew his company well as I have purchased typefaces from them for freelance work as well as a poster for myself so to get to meet a core member of their team was really a treat. Little did I know that the exercise of custom lettering would prove so challenging for myself. Having to letter “Type @ Cooper” sounds simple enough, but for some reason after 2 days of calligraphy my pencil drawing skills seemed to have left the building. At least 2 dozen sheets of frustrated and scratched out sketches led me to a final idea come the end of the class, but I did not have enough time to complete a clean version in time for voting the class best.

Sketching During the Lettering Workshop

It was a very valuable exercise and after focusing for the rest of the program on digitizing a consistent typeface I very much want to revisit custom lettering and more expressive, unbounded letter design. After watching Ken sketch so quickly and with such precision, I’d love to gain confidence with the pencil I feel I’m lacking at the moment.

Thursday consisted of tracing the individual strokes from our calligraphic letterforms and then scanning and digitizing those to have components with which to create consistent characters (that sounds complicated but really isn’t). A lot of time spent with my headphones on, toiling away on the computer and checking in every so often with Sumner and other classmates as the day progressed and finally ending with everyone printing out what they had so far and doing a quick critique. That evening we met with Andy Clymer (another member of the H&FJ team with Sara) and went over extreme details on font file structure and best practices as well as unicode values, opentype features, and capabilities when designing letterforms for other languages. Some really great information, but it was a bit dry (as very technical talks are ought to be) and after a long week we were all looking a bit run down when 9:00 pm came around.

Critique of Component Letters

On Friday we all trekked North to Columbia’s Butler Library where we were to view other rare texts displaying the history of the printed letter and even got to view cuneiform tablets from 2000 BC! Things of note included an original type specimen of Caslon, an original book on type design by Albrecht Durer, and of course the tablets mentioned before. The only downside to the visit was that it all took place in the one room in the library without air conditioning so come the end of the discussions we all looked like we had been through the wringer. Sorry in advance that most of the pictures are upside-down or at odd angles.

Cuneiform Tablets!

Sumner Discussing One of the Texts

Original Caslon Type Specimen

Amazing Printed Letterforms

Friends With You Dude

Today I got back outside and met up with a friend of a friend, Tamar and a few of her friends to view the pride parade and walk the High Line park. Considering the outcome of the recent vote on gay marriage in New York state, the parade was super insane and it was wonderful seeing so many people overwhelmed with happiness. The park was an amazing sight and such a wonderfully designed space making use of dilapidated raised railway. All the little touches and considerations to maintain the feeling of the railway but convert it into a unique and beautiful space came together throughout the multiple blocks it crosses. By the end I had eaten some delicious plum-mint shaved ice and was ready for a personal pizza from a food truck as well as artisan ice cream from another truck. Those treats combined with the “Friends With You” Rainbow City just made it a great walk and a good outing before continuing the type madness tomorrow.

"Friends With You" Rainbow City

I promptly returned home, took a shower, donned my pajamas, and am now currently immersed in a marathon of “Ice Road Truckers” (the other option was a marathon of “Hoarders” and I didn’t want to get completely depressed before bed). Now to scan over a book on type and get as much rest before starting the grind once more tomorrow morning.

Ice Road Truckers Marathon!

super official

Wednesday we visited the Morgan Library for a private viewing with the head curator of printed books to view examples and specimen books of classic type. Handling Bodoni’s Manuale Tipigrafico as well as 1 of an edition of 250 compendiums of Didot’s work (hilariously including at the beginning a list of mistakes Bodoni had made and how his work was superior type in every way, early versions of trash talk in action). With the immensely knowledgable curator as well as Sumner Stone giving us commentary on the publications and the type, the type-nerd excitement was palpable in the gorgeous top floor conservation room. Also in view in the main library gallery was a Gutenberg Bible (only 1 of 3 the library has in it’s collection) as well as other extremely rare books.

private exhibition and discussion

That night was a lesson in FontLab spacing issues and how to tackle different difficult letter combinations in most situations. FontLab is slowly growing on me, but it and I still have a long way to go before I’d consider the program a “friend”.

example of one of the viewed texts

Thursday was a full day of altering the weights of our first digitized forms from the Roman tablets and then taking those back to the drawing board. Examining the ways in which we could push the face more formal or informal as well as experimenting with changing the letterforms how we see fit to explore our capabilities took up most of the time with one-on-one time with Sara Soskolne to discuss our progress so far as well as where we want to move towards regarding our final typeface projects (only the first week and already at a point to plan our full typeface direction).

spacing tutorials

I didn’t think I could get much more tired but the latter half of the week has proven me wrong. I am really looking forward to a weekend of sleeping in but I’m also excited to have the time to explore further what I want to work on for my typeface (a quest for inspiration) and hopefully get outside a bit.

obligatory ridiculous first day of school picture

I have officially begun the condensed Cooper Type program and am now one of 15 individuals studying/drawing/digitizing typefaces for 12 and a half hours each day (Mon-Thurs). To put it lightly, only one and a half days in, this is definitely a marathon race like I’ve never experienced before. Taking the train back to Brooklyn I stare blankly at the other riders as I dream of the loving arms of the air-mattress to catch me as I fall through the doorway to the apartment directly on my face.

cooper union facade

It’s been a great experience so far and everyone from near and far (England, Australia, China, Holland, Spain, Argentina, etc…) has been extremely friendly and welcoming. To be back in a room with other design and type obsessed people is really invigorating and everyone’s excitement seems to bolster our spirits to keep working throughout the day. I think my main worry was that I was entering a situation where my skills would hardly match the levels of the other kids enrolled and I would freak out and collapse under the pressure (cue “Real Genius” phone call home played over the PA system)… The other factor was getting over my celebrity awe of the professors teaching us along the way and quickly realizing they are the most earnest and accessible teachers I have had in a long while.

my workspace

So far we’ve started our exploration by examining early Roman carved letterforms and were tasked with creating drawn skeletons for certain characters which we have begun importing into FontLab on the second day and experimenting with the tools to trace our new glyphs. The drawing was actually really relaxing even though it was very detail oriented work. I found myself concentrating on each curve, endpoint, and stroke and then looking at the clock to see that a few letters had appeared as well as a few hours. FontLab has been… interesting so far. An integral program for the design of fonts with more eccentricities and unfixed bugs (it’s last update was a number of years ago and come OS X Lion will be obsolete as it runs on the Rosetta engine Apple is conveniently removing). My main difficulty is being so used to Illustrator and seeing similar tools in FontLab that work completely differently from what I’m used to. Foray into the unknown seems to be the best method to learn all the tools and functionalities but it’s difficult going against my geometric perfectionist tendencies and just drawing letters willy nilly.

FontLab experiments

Anyhow, I am exhausted and the second day has just come to a close so I am off.