Course Description

Students 18 and up encouraged to apply.

Typography is the art of guiding the visual form of language to enrich and control its meaning. It’s an essential area of skill and knowledge for graphic designers around the world. Typography predates modern graphic design by around 500 years; it is rich in rules, conventions, and esoteric terminology representing various locations and cultures—and it remains an exciting space for invention and expression.

In this introductory course, we will study, name, and measure the characteristics of letterforms. We’ll consider the pragmatic concerns involved in selecting and combining type. We’ll peek into the historical, cultural, and aesthetic histories of familiar typefaces from around the world. We’ll discuss time-tested conventions and best practices in setting type, as governed by principles of hierarchy and spatial organization. And we’ll explore the expressive, meaning-making potential of type. Informative lectures will be complemented by a series of instructor-assessed assignments, culminating in an opportunity to design a full-scale typographic poster. Access to, and a beginner's level knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign is required.

Learner Outcomes

In this course you will:     

• be introduced to the language and terms of contemporary typography

• classify and compare typefaces

• evaluate the differenced between letterforms

• gain the skills to choose suitable typefaces for a variety of graphic design projects