Hasta La Ideas

In 2009, after 13 years as a self-employed graphic designer, I decided to abandon the professional world and go back to school — this time to pursue a field that seems related, but is an entirely separate discipline: typeface design.

Although a lot of type designers are self taught and quite successful, I was looking for the opportunity to study letterforms and their construction for an intense and uninterrupted period of time, something you can’t do while working full-time. After attending three type design courses over the last four years I’d like to share my experience with others who are considering a career in the field.

I won’t dig into much detail about individual projects. (They are heavily documented on other blogs, they often change, and it’s nice to have some surprises if you attend.) Instead, my intent is to give you a quick insight into what you might experience from each course, so you’ll be in a better position to decide which one or two might be best for you, and to help answer some of the questions I had before applying. There are a few handy tips in here, too.

The following three courses are a part of my journey to pursue type design as a career path.

Undergraduate: The Warm Up

My first experience with designing letterforms was when I enrolled in the undergraduate Digital Font Design unit VCO3305 at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. You join the Bachelor of Communication Design students that chose the type design unit as an elective for a four hour class each week for one semester — approximately twelve weeks. You begin each class with an hour lecture, then you have three hours studio time to work on your project. A minimum of an extra nine hours during your week is required to complete the assignments.

This unit teaches the basic skills of using a font editor (at the time we used FontLab, now they are using RoboFont), an introduction into type construction, spacing, and some type design history. Our assignments included creating a modular font (A–Z, 0–9), a brush- or pen-inspired font, and finally a self-initiated project. In each you are encouraged to expand the character set to include upper and lowercase, numerals and punctuation. A research assignment on an existing typeface to present to the class was also a part of the assessment. For our final submission we designed a small specimen for each font we created.

If you are living in Australia, I highly recommend this course as a good introduction to type design while still having the ability to continue your freelance work. And for those living elsewhere, the good news is that undergraduate courses with a focus on type design are becoming more common. Check in with your local university or art school.

Type@Cooper: The Sprint

For those seriously interested in creating type, the Type@Cooper Condensed Postgraduate Certificate in Typeface Design might be for you. This course, based in New York, is a five week type design bootcamp for fifteen selected participants from around the world. The course is setup especially for international students, so be prepared to benefit from new lifelong friends at your future travel destinations.

Type@Cooper condensed class of 2011 with teachers Sara Soskolne, Cara Di Edwardo, Sumner Stone, and guest lecturer Matthew Carter.

Type@Cooper is an intense course from day one. It compacts the contact hours from the yearlong Extended program into five weeks! You will work around twelve hours a day, seven days a week to keep up with these guys. The moment you arrive at Cooper you start drawing type. We worked with the broad nib pen and brush to learn the basic structure of roman letterforms before moving onto developing our own typeface.

The historic Cooper Union Foundation Building, New York.

History and theory is taught with visits to many of New York’s famous libraries and museums and the amazing Herb Lubalin Study Centre of Design and Typography located in the beautiful Cooper Union building.

This course will truly test your interest in type, giving you the opportunity to work on your own typeface for the duration of the course. You are required to present your progress to your teachers and fellow classmates on a regular basis while learning how to constructively critique the work of others. Your teachers at Type@Cooper are among the best type designers in the world, so you are in extremely good hands. My experience at Type@Cooper gave me a solid understanding of history, construction, spacing, digitization using RoboFont, and some basic font production and Python coding. I highly recommend this course if you are ready for a challenge and prepared to put your working life aside for five invigorating weeks.

The application process is seamless and you will find out if you’ve been excepted before or on the date they publish. I submitted a folio of typographic work, including my first attempts at type design from the course at Monash University. I showed I was able to find my way around a font editor and had an understanding, and a substantial interest in creating type.

Once you’ve been accepted you will need to find accommodation in New York, which is not cheap and is a little bit of a challenge. I arrived in the city and stayed in a hostel for a week while looking for a place, but I would recommend trying to secure something before your arrive. I finally found a share-house on CraigsList in East Village within walking distance to Cooper Union which proved to be very handy after a long day of drawing type. It’s also good to be close to other classmates so you can work together on weekends and grab a beer and a meal after class. When you’re accepted, try to link up with each other on Facebook and Twitter before you arrive.

KABK: The Full Marathon

Type and Media at The Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague, The Netherlands, is the granddaddy of type design courses. It’s like Type@Cooper on steroids. The yearlong master’s study is intense, and the intensity expands the full year. They offer you the chance to put your life on hold and focus purely on type, learning from the best type designers in the field. Holidays are really not holidays and weekends are pretty much for working. This is the first time in my life where I lost track of days, and where weekends blended into the working week. Having said that, if you like type you will enjoy every minute!

The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, The Netherlands.

Taught in English, Type and Media is a combination of experiences designed to allow you to distill your own way of working and producing typefaces. It’s not a course where you are hand-held and shown “the way” to do things. Each teacher has different (sometimes conflicting) ideas and methods of working. It puts you in a position to find your own direction. Looking back, it feels like every experience had a purpose and the structure was a truly tested one.

Pen work and sketching is a big part of this course. The broad nib pen, flexible pointed pen, and hammer and chisel were tools we got to know from the start. Sketching, sketching, and more sketching was encouraged for exploring ideas before any digitization. The TypeCooker website was a tool we used often for pushing the limits on what you can achieve when mixing different type parameters. We had a lot of fun and many wild ideas were hatched during these classes.

The research side of things is not forgotten. Trips to libraries and museums in The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, and the UK led us to the elusive names and history of forgotten pre-nineteenth-century typefaces.

The major project in the second half of the year is where all that you’ve learnt and experienced during the first half of the year is focused. This is your opportunity to put it all into practice and develop a fully-working typeface of your choice. Presenting your ideas and progress is an important element in the process. We met regularly with our teachers and classmates to show where we were at and to explain our journey. Your classmates’ experiences are also important to your own progress throughout the year.

Type and Media graduating class of 2013 with teacher Jan Willem Stas.

Many hours are spent with your fellow classmates, and they become your family. Students from eleven different countries were plucked out of our everyday lives and placed in a pressure cooker for a year. Not only do you learn about type here, you also learn about different cultures, personalities and a lot about yourself. Don’t expect to come out of this course the same person as when you went in. There is not much time to meet outsiders, so operating as a team, functioning happily and productively, is an important part of this unique experience.

Getting into Type and Media is a battle in itself. With over 150 applicants each year being one of the twelve selected was a great honor. The application process involved submitting a letter of motivation to attend. Basically you have to convince them that you have enough interest and experience to be considered for the enduring time ahead. After submitting your application, don’t be disheartened if you don’t hear back from them immediately, or if at all. But waiting to hear if you’ve been accepted is quite painful. It will not necessarily be on the date that they publish, but you will hear back from them eventually. Keep an eye on the @typemedia twitter account — sometimes this hints at where they are in the application process. If you’re not accepted, but you’re still serious about attending, don’t give up. Improve your skills and try again the next year. You won’t be the first person to have applied a couple of times before getting into this course.

Once accepted, you will need to organize your big move to The Netherlands. This can be quite a task if you don’t speak Dutch (Nederlands) as all governmental and business correspondence is written in the local language. Having said that, most Dutch-speaking people are also happy to speak in English, and Google Translate will become your best friend for all written documents. Be sure to get in contact with the graduating students as they can help you with any questions you might have, including lodging. There are a few “unofficial” Type and Media houses that have been passed down from previous students which makes life a lot easier — especially if you are not from Europe.

Type and Media is truly an experience you will carry with you for the rest of your life. I highly recommend this course if you intend for type to be a big part of that journey.

Choosing Your Own Path

I decided on these three courses over other type design programs because of the hands-on experience they offer. While there is a different level of theory included in each, making type is what they are all about.

One important distinction is that they focus mainly on designing Latin typefaces. Still, at Type and Media I spent some time designing a Greek and my revival project was a Javanese typeface. Whatever your interest in non-Latin type, in my opinion, learning the principles of type design and exploring shapes initially is most important. Once you have this under your belt, exploring other scripts become more about understanding the language, its script, and how it’s used.

But my path may not be yours. Before you choose a program, check out these other specialized type design courses around the globe:

Argentina
Universidad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires)
CDT-UBA, Carrera de especialización en Diseño de Tipografía

France
École Estienne (Paris)
DSAA Création Typographique
École supérieure d’art et de design, ESAD (Amiens)
Post-diplôme Systèmes graphiques, langage et typographie

Germany
Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, HGB (Leipzig)
Klasse für Type-Design

Switzerland
École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, ECAL (Lausanne)
MA Art Direction: Type Design
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, ZHdK (Zürich)
CAS Schriftgestaltung
MAS Type Design and Typography

Mexico
Centro de Estudios Gestalt (Veracruz)
Maestría en Diseño Tipográfico

United Kingdom
University of Reading (Reading)
MA Typeface Design

This children’s library with rammed earth walls in Burundi, Africa, was built by Belgian studio BC Architects and members of the local community, according to an open-source design template (+ slideshow).

The Library of Muyinga is the first building of a project to build a new school for deaf children, using local materials and construction techniques, and referencing indigenous building typologies.

BC Architects developed the design from a five-year-old template listed on the OpenStructures network. They adapted it to suit the needs of the programme, adding a large sheltered corridor that is typical of traditional Burundian housing.

“Life happens mostly in this hallway porch: encounters, resting, conversation, waiting,” explained the architects. “It is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.”

Rammed earth blocks form the richly coloured walls and were produced using a pair of vintage compressor machines. They create rows of closely spaced piers around the exterior, supporting a heavy roof clad with locally made baked-clay tiles.

“The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity,” said the architects. “We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labour force, supporting the local economy and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material – earth.”

The wide corridor runs along one side of the building, negotiating a change in level between the front and back of the site. Glass panels are slotted between columns along one of its sides and hinge open to lead through to the library reading room.

Here, bookshelves are slotted within recesses between the piers, while a large wooden table provides a study area and a huge hammock is suspended from the ceiling to create a more informal space for reading.

Wooden shutters reveal when the library is open. They also open the building out to the area where the rest of the school will be built, which is bounded by a new drystone wall.

“A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements,” said the architects.

High ceilings allow cross ventilation, via a pattern of square perforations between the rammed earth blocks.

Here’s a more detailed project description from BC architects:

The Library of Muyinga

Architecture

The first library of Muyinga, part of a future inclusive school for deaf children, in locally sourced compressed earth blocks, built with a participatory approach.

Our work in Africa started within the framework of OpenStructures.net. BC was asked to scale the “Open structures” model to an architectural level. A construction process involving end-users and second-hand economies was conceived. Product life cycles, water resource cycles en energy cycles were connected to this construction process. This OpenStructures architectural model was called Case Study (CS) 1: Katanga, Congo. It was theoretical, and fully research-based. 5 years later, the library of Muyinga in Burundi nears completion.

Vernacular inspirations

A thorough study of vernacular architectural practices in Burundi was the basis of the design of the building. Two months of fieldwork in the region and surrounding provinces gave us insight in the local materials, techniques and building typologies. These findings were applied, updated, reinterpreted and framed within the local know-how and traditions of Muyinga.

The library is organised along a longitudinal covered circulation space. This “hallway porch” is a space often encountered within the Burundian traditional housing as it provides a shelter from heavy rains and harsh sun. Life happens mostly in this hallway porch; encounters, resting, conversation, waiting – it is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.

This hallway porch is deliberately oversized to become the extent of the library. Transparent doors between the columns create the interaction between inside space and porch. Fully opened, these doors make the library open up towards the adjacent square with breathtaking views over Burundi’s “milles collines” (1000 hills).

On the longitudinal end, the hallway porch flows onto the street, where blinders control access. These blinders are an important architectural element of the street facade, showing clearly when the library is open or closed. On the other end, the hallway porch will continue as the main circulation and access space for the future school.

A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements. For the library of Muyinga, the compound wall was considered in a co-design process with the community and the local NGO. The wall facilitates the terracing of the slope as a retaining wall in dry stone technique, low on the squares and playground of the school side, high on the street side. Thus, the view towards the valley is uncompromised, while safety from the street side is guaranteed.

The general form of the library is the result of a structural logic, derived on one hand from the material choice (compressed earth blocks masonry and baked clay roof tiles). The locally produced roof tiles were considerably more heavy than imported corrugated iron sheets. This inspired the structural system of closely spaced columns at 1m30 intervals, which also act as buttresses for the high walls of the library. This rhythmic repetition of columns is a recognisable feature of the building, on the outside as well as on the inside.

The roof has a slope of 35% with an overhang to protect the unbaked CEB blocks, and contributes to the architecture of the library.

Climatic considerations inspired the volume and facade: a high interior with continuous cross-ventilation helps to guide the humid and hot air away. Hence, the facade is perforated according to the rhythm of the compressed earth blocks (CEB) masonry, giving the library its luminous sight in the evening.

The double room height at the street side gave the possibility to create a special space for the smallest of the library readers. This children’s space consist of a wooden sitting corner on the ground floor, which might facilitate cosy class readings. It is topped by an enormous hammock of sisal rope as a mezzanine, in which the children can dream away with the books that they are reading.

The future school will continue to swing intelligently through the landscape of the site, creating playgrounds and courtyards to accomodate existing slopes and trees. In the meanwhile, the library will work as an autonomous building with a finished design.

Local materials research

The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity. We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labour force, supporting local economy, and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material: earth.

Earth analysis: “field tests and laboratory tests” – Raw earth as building material is more fragile than other conventional building materials. Some analyse is thus important to do. Some easy tests can be made on field to have a first idea of its quality. Some other tests have to be made in the laboratory to have a beter understanding of the material and improve its performance.

CEB: “from mother nature” – After an extensive material research in relation with the context, it was decided to use compressed earth bricks (CEB) as the main material for the construction of the building. We were lucky enough to find 2 CEB machines intactly under 15 years of dust. The Terstaram machines produce earth blocks of 29x14x9cm that are very similar to the bricks we know in the North, apart from the fact that they are not baked. Four people are constantly producing stones, up to 1100 stones/day.

Eucalyptus “wood; the strongest, the reddest” – The load bearing beams that are supporting the roof are made of eucalyptus wood, which is sustainably harvested in Muramba. Eucalyptus wood renders soil acid and therefor blocks other vegetation to grow. Thus, a clear forest management vision is needed to control the use of it in the Burundian hills. When rightly managed, Eucalyptus is the best solution to span spaces and use as construction wood, due to its high strengths and fast growing.

Tiles: “local quality product” – The roof and floor tiles are made in a local atelier in the surroundings of Muyinga. The tiles are made of baked Nyamaso valley clay. After baking, their color renders beautifully vague pink, in the same range of colors as the bricks. Each roof surface in the library design consists of around 1400 tiles. This roof replaces imported currogated iron sheets, and revalues local materials as a key design element for public roof infrastructure.

Internal Earth plaster: “simple but sensitive” – Clay from the valley of Nyamaso, 3 km from the construction site, was used for its pure and non-expansive qualities. After some minimal testing with bricks, a mix was chosen and applied on the interior of the library. The earth plaster is resistent to indoor normal use for a public function, and has turned out nicely.

Bamboo: “Weaving lamp fixtures” – Local bamboo is not of construction quality, but can nicely be used for special interior design functions, or light filters. In a joint workshop with Burundians and Belgians, some weaving techniques were explored, and in the end, used for the lamp fixtures inside the library.

Sisal rope: “from plant to hammock” – Net-making from Sisal plant fibres is one of the small micro-economies that bloomed in this project. It took a lot of effort to find the only elder around Muyinga that masters the Sisal rope weaving technique. He harvested the local sisal plant on site, and started weaving. In the pilote project, he educated 4 other workers, who now also master this technique, and use it as a skill to gain their livelihood. The resulting hammock serves as a children’s space to play, relax and read, on a mezzanine level above the library space.

Concrete “when it’s the only way out” – For this pilot project, we didn’t want to take any risks for structural issues. A lightweight concrete skeleton structure is inside the CEB columns, in a way that both materials (CEB and concrete) are mechanichally seperated. The CEB hollow columns were used as a “lost” formwork for the concrete works. It is our aim, given our experience with Phase 1, to eliminiate the structural use of concrete for future buildings.

Project Description: Library for the community of Muyinga
Location: Muyinga (BU)
Client: ODEDIM
Architect: BC architects
Local material consultancy: BC studies
Community participation and organisation: BC studies and ODEDIM Muyinga
Cooperation: ODEDIM Muyinga NGO, Satimo vzw, Sint-Lucas Architecture University, Sarolta Hüttl, Sebastiaan De Beir, Hanne Eckelmans
Financial support: Satimo vzw, Rotary Aalst, Zonta Brugge, Province of West-Flanders
Budget: €40 000
Surface: 140m2
Concept: 2012
Status: completed

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earth walls by BC Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Text & photos by Moa Dickmark

Let me start off by saying that this is solemnly based on personal experiences and opinions! Sure, there’s some facts to back it up seeing that we have done our research, but the sources are long forgotten. Not because they weren’t relevant, but i’ve mixed them up in my mental blender…

To the point: Working with kids has many sides. It can be hard, it can be challenging, you have to plan the day down to the minute, and make sure that you can rearrange your plans depending on the day play out, but most of all it’s good fun, inspiring and amazingly awesome to be let into their world.

As an architect by training, I have worked with my lovely colleague Heidi Lyng to develop various methods when working together with kids, teachers and leaders on developing educational spaces using co-creative design processes. We’ve been doing this for over two years now, and have been working on everything between concrete projects such as developing more active playgrounds to more fluffy projects such as developing a common vision for a gymnasium. We see everyone involved—from the 7-year-old student to the 62-year-old principal—as experts in their field. No one is as good at being a 7-year-old girl as a 7-year- old girl…

As I’ve already written, working with kids have many facets—it can be hard, it can be tricky, it can be hilarious, it can be oh-so-many things, but most of all it’s fun, it is inspiring and it is vital if you want to reach the optimal result with the project.

First, the Good

No matter what their age, kids have an insight into, and a view of, how it is to be a kid of their own age that no one, no matter how good you are at putting yourself into the shoes of others, can do to the same extent. Figuring out why a certain space works, and why another one doesn’t is something only the kids you work with can tell you. It’s their field of expertise. They know, instinctively, where they prefer to work, where they get inspired and where they feel safe etc. What we, the architects, do is help them define and understand theses spaces by playing games and asking questions.

(more…)

News: following the announcement last month that London architecture studio FAT is to disband this year, founding member Sean Griffiths has been appointed professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster.

Griffiths is an alumnus of the University of Westminster and has recently held posts there as a teacher and researcher at the Department of Architecture.

“In my new role I want to highlight alternative forms of practice, exemplified by firms such as FAT, which emerged from the University of Westminster, as well as draw attention to the huge variety of activities in fields such as fine art, journalism, property development, social activism and arts consultancy that a number of prominent former students currently undertake,” said Griffiths. “This is particularly important in light of the ongoing debate about the value of architectural education.”

“I’m particularly pleased that the Professorship is at the University of Westminster, which was the springboard for the formation of FAT and has been a fantastic workshop for ideas that have found their way into my practice work, a process that will no doubt continue,” he added.

Alongside his position at University of Westminster, Griffiths will continue his current work as an architect, designer, artist, writer and teacher.

The appointment follows the news that London studio FAT, which Griffiths co-founded in 1995 with Charles Holland and Sam Jacob, will close down this summer.

Renowned for its playful, postmodern approach to architecture, FAT announced in December that it would disband following the completion of two major projects – the curation of the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014 and a fairytale house it designed in collaboration with artist Grayson Perry for the Living Architecture series of holiday homes.

Photograph by Tim Soar.

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Sean Griffiths as Professor of Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Design for extreme affordability. That’s the challenge presented by one course at Stanford University’s Institute of Design (better known as the d.school); how students address it—drawing on methods from engineering and industrial design in combination with ideas from the arts, tools from the social sciences, and insights from the business world—is the subject of a new documentary. In Extreme by Design, now available on iTunes, filmmakers Ralph King Jr. and Michael Schwarz follow d.schoolers as they create and test potentially life-saving products for those in the developing countries they visit. Here’s the trailer:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.