Learn From The Masters At TDC's Type Masters Week NYC

In their ongoing commitment to education, the Type Directors Club of New York is organising its second Type Masters Week. Starting this Thursday, May 31, a series of workshops and evening lectures will take place at the Type Directors Club Center in New York. The line-up is pretty spectacular – Gail Anderson, David Berlow, and Bas Jacobs (Underware). Attendees are advised to hang on to their ticket stub for the evening lecture, as they are automatically entered into the raffle for a chance to attend the related workshop for free.

Evening Lecture|Change is Good???

Thursday, May 31st

Making a change in any part of your life sounds like a good idea, but is actually pretty scary stuff. Come listen to a designer who's trying to shake things up a little – while clinging desperately to the familiar. Take a peek at Gail Anderson's sources of inspiration and recent work, including wonderful projects from her students at The School of Visual Arts. It's an evening of honest discussion about the very slow process of reinvention (and cool type).

Gail Anderson is a New York-based designer, writer, and educator. From 2002 through 2010, she served as Creative Director of Design at SpotCo, creating artwork for Broadway and institutional theater. From 1987 to early 2002, she worked at Rolling Stone magazine, serving as designer, deputy art director, and finally, as the magazine's senior art director. 

Anderson is co-author, with Steven Heller, of the upcoming New Modernist Type, as well as New Ornamental Type, New Vintage Type, and several other design and illustration books. She is a contributor to Imprint and Uppercase magazine. Anderson teaches in the School of Visual Arts MFA, undergraduate, and high school design programs, and is the recipient of the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Medal from the AIGA.

Workshop 1|Type Play at TDC

June 1–3

Jealous of those wonderful "type videos" you see in the TDC annual year after year? Spend a long weekend with SVA instructor Gail Anderson and her always-cheerful co-teacher, Josh Hester, and create your own short motion piece in After Effects. A basic understanding of the software is helpful, but you can amaze your colleagues and children just by making a letter move across the screen, so don't worry!

Evening Lecture|Keep Dreaming

Monday, June 4th

Underware is a pan-European design collective that has been creating versatile fonts for more than ten years, blazing its own trail in the design world. The company was founded in 1999 by Akiem Helmling, Sami Kortemäki and Bas Jacobs, and is based in Den Haag, Helsinki and Amsterdam. With a unique approach to style and technology, Underware has earned a fantastic reputation with its extraordinary font designs, genre distorting workshops and media such as Typeradio.

Workshop 2|Keep It Straight

June 5

If you think you've got enough energy to be part of this internet-free ants' nest for one day, you'll experience that type design can be a thrilling experience if everybody kicks the same ass. We're gonna make 1 font together, and that can be as electrifying as Sylvester Stallone in a B-movie. Especially when there are 20 captains on board and when the real KISS principle will be executed: Keep It Straight, Stupid.

Evening Lecture|The Future of the Font Formats

Tuesday, June 5th

What do graphic designers, web designers and font designers have to look forward to in their typography, as the result of the continued evolution of font formats?

David Berlow entered the type industry in 1978 as a trainee in New York City at Mergenthaler Linotype, a leading manufacturer of typesetting equipment. In 1982 he joined the newly launched digital type supplier, Bitstream, where he developed fonts, font tools, and marketing strategies.

 In 1989 he formed The Font Bureau with Roger Black, where he has developed custom type designs for The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Hewlett Packard. His type designs include Charcoal, Gadget, and Techno for Apple Computer, ITC Franklin Gothic Condensed and ITC Franklin Gothic Compressed for ITC, Dow Text for the Wall Street Journal, and the Giza family for Font Bureau.

Workshop 3|Web Fonts Dissected

June 6th

We will start by designing a small number of glyphs and taking them all the way through hinting to browser specimens. (1.5 hours)Then, we will break up into two groups: those who want to design and/or hint; and those who want to get up-to-speed on use of non-default web fonts. (1.5 hours)Everyone makes a little web site (2 hrs)Critique & Review (remainder of time): we look at the designed and/or hinted glyphs online; we look at the non-default font selection and use online.Everyone gets a WebType goodie.

Images from the first Type Masters Week, June 6–10, 2011.

Type Masters Week 2011 Workshop – Erik Spiekermann | What makes a good typeface?

Type Masters Week 2011 Workshop – Cyrus Highsmith | Thinking in contours

Type Masters Week 2011 Workshop – Alejandro Paul | Lettering for the masses

Type Masters Week 2011 Workshop – Luc(as) de Groot | Perceiving Type – Optical Mathematics