From Calligraphy and Stone Carving to Digital Type: Types of Art
Professor Goffredo Puccetti
Spring

This is a Studio Elective course, open to both majors and non-majors. Type Design is the art and craft of designing typefaces. From calligraphy and stone carving to digital type, the history of type recounts the discoveries and technological progress made through human interventions. While some types faces are insignificant and forgotten, others will survive mankind, such as Future engraved on the Apollo 11 plague, left forever on the Moon. Some of the typefaces were revolutionary, others reactionary. And behind each of them there was an inventory. Students will follow the "traces" and the stories of the type masters who shaped our visual typographical landscapes. We will see how types can become visual metaphors of towns and nations - Johnston Underground is London - or marketing tools for the advertising industry. Typography and type design in the digital age will be investigated via practical exercise and printing workshops. The birth of contemporary Western Types will be explored via calligraphy and digital type design workshop where students will design their own digital letters as originated from their own calligraphy. Our look will also turn to Abu Dhabi, a capital with its own visual culture in the making, where wester and eastern typography meet, clash, merge, and evolve. Western and Arabic versions of typefaces will be examined and students will learn to identify and combine fonts on real visual design layouts. We'll go hunting for "type crimes" happening in Abu Dhabi, debating them and proposing solutions. The course will host lectures and workshops by eminent Type Designers on typeface digital design and specifically the design of the Arabic versions of iconic western typefaces and logotypes.