I guess one of my biggest setbacks is while I studied and now work as a graphic designer, I did not do a degree granting program so I hold no bachelors seemingly making my desire to go there rather futile. I wouldn’t want to go back to school to do 4 years just to do the type design program. That leaves me being one of those people who will end up learning their type design and theory via whatever is available online or in more accessible sources of information to the public. It may not be the easiest way to go, and probably filled with additional setbacks, but one can only hope it will still lead to quality work in the end.

After all that rambling it reflects back to the mention that not everyone in the world who is interested in type design will get the chance to study at such schools, Yet they will undoubtedly produce some very fine type.

Having completed my practical project at Reading, I am now to complete my dissertation. Owing to factors beyond my control, this has had to take a backseat for a while. My disseration topic is on the teaching of Gerrit Noordzij–not his theories, but on his process of instruction.

One of the highlights, I think, of my time at Reading was the day I was able to spend with Mr Noordzij at his home. (The day previous was spent in an interview with Erik van Blokland, for which I am also indebted and grateful, as much as I am for my time under Gerry’s tutelage.) During the course of the discussion, we turned to the differences between programs, and it dawned on me that perhaps Reading is less theoretical than the KABK, while Reading is to a significantly greater extent, more practical.

If I had to continue to use some of the terms that are attached to Reading, I would say that Reading is the historically aware program, rather than the theoretical one. The fact that Reading involves so much testing and output of student work at the text level makes it “practical.” We are expected to produce a text face that should be “ready to ship” upon degree completion.

The KABK, as I understand from Mssrs van Blokland and Noordzij, does not intend on creating type designers from day one. This of course needs clarification. They do educate and produce some of the best at KABK (as well as Reading), but the goal at the KABK is to employ a wide range of skills and ideas to enable students to practice as they see fit upon degree completion. It is up to the student to synthesize their exposure to stone-cutting, screen resolution design, font programming, broad nib and (steel) quill pen exercises, et al. toward the resolution of their intended career pursuits. It is this exposure to a multitude of techniques without immediately obvious outcome which causes me to deem the KABK as the theoretical program. Reading allows students to pursue an individualized path of exploration as well, but paths, ie. technique, are not granted via direct instruction.

Reading does not teach formal process to students–other than the occasional visitor workshop–and the stated and very thorough method by which we are taught to evaluate our designs in practical settings, ie, a 1200 dpi + Postscript level 3 laser printer is our best friend. Each student determines their own way of creating form which is most often from reading–hence the reliance on history.

I hope that this adds to the discussion. I know that some may not agree with some of the characterizations. Gerry is aware of my penchant for a “strong vision” projected by, perhaps even “imprinted upon,” students by a school.

I attended Princeton for a Master of Architecture degree and Cranbrook Academy of Art for a Master of Fine Arts degree in graphic design. Both of these schools have very strong voices which have an effect upon student output. I don’t know how much of this background is found in my own work, but I look at this as providing a base from which one can act or react. Neither program is better, just different.

http://www.inputoutput.de/

We have most of the award catalogs in our school library, too, if you would like to see something.

To see some images of Lukas Schneider’s typeface (HfG graduate, in :output a few years ago), click here, and then select “gazoline”.

I don’t think it’s exactly the same, for reasons of “power = responsability”. An educational institution in a major industrialized power really has a different responsability to the world than one in a place like Yerevan. One clear indication of this is the student body: how many non-Brits go to Reading versus non-Armenians to Gartal*? This might seem unfair, but I really think it’s the opposite.

* A fictional Armenian design college. :-)

–

> you need to ensure that all
> configurations of compulsory
> elements result in equivalent
> workloads

That’s a great ideal, but it seems so difficult -if not impossible- to achieve that wouldn’t it better to simply do the best you can? As long as you clearly warn the student of the particular educational limitations of the script he’s targeting. Guidance is very important, but especially in a grad school shouldn’t the student have more “self-will” in this respect?

I think it’s great that they have to do a Latin. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that. The potential problem (the type of thing I call “dark side” – not because it has a nice mystical ring to it but because it alludes to an inherent, unwitting problem – very different than a conscious directional choice made by a school) is if this causes a script superiorty complex so to speak, reducing the merit of any non-Latin component. One way to reduce the risk of this might be to not force a chronological order (Latin then non-Latin) on development.

On the other hand, I certainly grasp the practical issues in focusing on Latin, both in terms of what the teachers know as well as what the market wants. This is in fact one place where KABK seems far worse off than Reading; the more you focus on practice versus theory (no, you can’t have all of both all of the time) the more minority scripts will suffer, not to mention the global outlook -and depth of vision- of the students.

> I will try to disengage from this discussion

:-(

hhp

I am in the Swiss now and tomorrow will be a conference (german only) where three Swiss and one German school will discuss the relevance of typography in art and design education. The questions they pose are:

1. Has typography still a relevance in those schools?
2. How strongly do the models of education differ?
3. How is Typography globalised?

Participating Schools are the International School of Basel, Merz Academy Stuttgart and the Artschools of Bern and Lausanne.

I will post a summary if something interesting pops up.

PS to Dan: with “Corporate Universities” i mean universities who behave like a company business instead of an institute of education and research. It’s good that you ask because i guess i could have meant SchoolX for example in the sense that the student becomes a kind of SchoolX-branded Product on a Market of Professionals — (like institution standard) — however I didn’t mean this.

When an institution starts “…cloning their version of the ideal designer…” it also specializes but by focusing on the market and the institutions position within it, which I would then consider schools that tend towards behaving like buisnesses. It “uses” the students to distribute and represent their image. The focus is on nonlocal factors. Somehow this can only lead to a moneydriven institute with shifts in its qualities — like less discourse.

[I will try to disengage from this discussion; it is taking up time that I cannot spare]

Thank you for spending so much time writing posts! You certainly must be busy, but I was was glad to read your opinions and learned a lot from your answers to the posted questions!

I would be keen for all students to attempt some non-Latin, not only for the professional advantage this will give them, but also because the design problems a non-Latin throws at you are generally more complicated than in the case of the Latin. (If this is not immediately evident, it is easy to begin to answer by asking yourself “why do the typeforms of x script look the way they do?”)

I do not make a non-Latin component compulsory for two reasons: firstly, some students do not feel they can tackle the workload of developing for two scripts at a particular level in the time they have; I may disagree, but I have to respect that, and would rather not exclude interesting people from the programme on this ground. The other reason is that if you make something compulsory you need to ensure that all configurations of compulsory elements result in equivalent workloads: i.e. that doing a Hebrew will be comparable to doing a Tibetan. This is impossible to formulate as a general principle, and is in the end dependant on access to relevant resources and support, and student experience in a number of areas. It is much better to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis. (John’s comment about Cyrilic is a good example: on paper less complicated to develop a typeface for than Tibetan, but in the latter case we had unprecedented access to recources and expert support, so the typeface is completed in all aspects sucessfully. On the other hand, unless the UK immigration authorities stop pulling the rug under our feet, it will be difficult to have Maxim Zhukov’s involvement to the level of my intentions, so Cyrillics will suffer in comparison.)

John, re your comment on scripts: I think we’re actually saying the same thing; the discussions we’ve had on non-Latin development may stem from specific projects, but have always focused on identifying the wider systematic aspects applying to to the particular typeface (cue discussion on a typeface design as an instance of a script system…).

[I will try to disengage from this discussion; it is taking up time that I cannot spare]