Day 17 — Typography Workshop

| Wednesday | 08.06.22 | Copenhagen, Denmark |

I have been looking forward to today since the

words "typography workshop" were put in the calendar. By far my typography classes were my favorite from my first year of college, so naturally

I was very excited to explore this field more in Scandinavia! This workshop was led by award-winning type foundry, Playtype, who designed

type superfamilies for the city of Copenhagen,

the Berlinske newspaper, as well as many other

custom projects. We started with a conversation

about a type designer's process and the importance

of understanding the language of the respective letterforms. We got to dive into a few of Playtype's specific projects, looking at the hundreds of fonts within a superfamily, how the typeface can be advertised in motion, and real world execution. Stopping here would have satisfied the typography nerd in me, but luckily there was still more to explore!

We began the interactive portion of the workshop discussing shape and its universal meanings and assumptions. With the words "anger," "drunk," and "happy," we were challenged to represent these emotions using simple shapes. While this was challenging, it brought to light the idea that letterforms should boil down to shapes that artfully and legibly communicate a message. Next

we chose two of the same three emotions and tied them to the letters "n" and "o," following the philosophy that all typefaces can be formed from those two letters. From there, we chose one concept and began drafting a typeface using the basic letters A, v, a, n, d, g, o, t, and e with the intention of creating a "beautiful group of letters" rather

than a "group of beautiful letters" (referencing David Carson). Overall, I was fascinated by the deeper meanings

and intentions of type design. Many overlook the power and necessity of effective letterforms and I hope to contribute to this vital system of communication in the future.