Category: Syllabus
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From the Gamified Classroom to the Typographic Discovery: Inside the SLOType 2026 Challenge
The primary purpose of Exercise 2 (EX2): Letterforms Analysis (with the SLOType workshop/method) is to have students respond to a creative brief generated by the SLOType web application by drawing and analyzing a mini-word (3 to 5 letters). The specific objectives are: This is all done (or intended) to be done briefly after a brief…
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2026 Case Study and Morphological Analysis
Following an extensive introductory overview of typographic history and the evolution of letterforms over the last 500 years, the Course Exercise 1 initiates the curriculum by requiring students to conduct a comprehensive morphological and structural analysis of a typeface of their choosing. The analytical framework demands a structured layout—typically utilizing a visual illustration on the…
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Introduction to OpenType Features: Context & Alternates
Once you’ve finished drawing your glyphs, how do you make them behave? OpenType features are the programmed rules that make your font “smart.” They are the invisible instructions that allow a font to automatically swap out characters, prevent awkward collisions, and give visual designers different stylistic choices. While there are dozens of OpenType features, understanding…
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Copyright Information
When a digital type design project is ready for publishing and distribution, it is important to check your legal information before exporting the final WOFF, OpenType and Variable Font files. This year, students have been asking how to do this. The final copyrights notice and legal (EULA) license information is the target of much discussion…
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Typeface Design Evaluation Criteria
The quality assessment (QA) or the evaluation of the quality of a typeface design is a very complex task, as it requires assessing the design’s technical, contextual, and aesthetic qualities.
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Specimen showcase
Today was the first-semester class. During the next 15 weeks, I will [try to] bring a sample of different physical/printed type specimens to class. The only criteria are that they have to be bound books, booklets, magazines, journals, newspapers, or another book (ish) or editorial-based media. Class 1, 2022-01-08: Adobe Originals: Garamond Pro and Arno;…
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Writing systems of the World
[This post is still a rough draft mainly citing Robinson’s book. Lacks additional sources such as Bright, Nakanishi and a few others. Also, examples of scripts!] Cuneiform Evolves from pictograms to wedge-shaped cuneiform signs in Sumer around 2500 BC. Evolved into Babylonian, Assyrian, Hitite. Used by the Akkadian and Elamites also. It evolved over the…
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Origins of Writing
Writing seems to have its origins in around 4000 BC. Several authors claim as writing signs dating from as early as 20 000 BC. But, for this context, we consider everything we are not sure of being a full writing system as proto-writing (Robinson, 2009). Writing is a “system of graphic symbols that can be…