In Defense of Regionalism: Typography Education Beyond KABK & Reading

Written by Dan Reynolds on November 21, 2004

Every month or so, a group of type-minded students and designers from the Frankfurt area meet for drinks, or what we like to call a Typostammtisch. Last night, we had the surprise honor of hosting the fabled mathematics professor Luc Devroye who just happens to be researching at the University of Frankfurt this year. Early in the evening, he asked my fellow students from the HfG Offenbach about type design education, which interests us tremendously, even though it is no longer part of our college’s curriculum.

“Aren’t you jealous of all of those students at KABK and Reading?” he wondered. “In Prague they were always together, and they all knew everybody! They seemed to be having so much fun.” [Note: KABK and Reading students don’t just rub shoulders and mingle with some of our industry’s leading figures, they also learn from them – and do a damned good amount of work, too].

“No,” I answered. “I mean, yes – on some level – of course. You have to be. At the same time, the other type students and I have been organizing ourselves as best we can, despite receiving no support from our institution. And we quite enjoy being in this sort of situation. No one organizes any of this stuff [like the Typostammtisch] for us. Somehow, we make all of this work.”

I do not suffer from delusion. KABK and the University of Reading both offer top-notch programs. You’ll never have to sell me on the value of quality higher education. All of the typographic work that we in Offenbach do outside the classroom pales in comparison with the work which students at those two institutions are fortunate enough to do inside the classroom.

So where does that great Dutch and English work leave students from the rest of the world? We can’t possibly all migrate to schools like Reading or KABK; nor should we. Too often, students and designers take their own surroundings for granted. Is the grass always greener on the other side? Maybe, but regionalism can have a lot to offer, too. Isn’t all effective design local (like politics)?

So, regional students (for lack of a better term): take a look around you. What do you see? Here, in the greater Frankfurt area, there is no dearth of students or designers doing exciting things with type (see Viagrafik and Xplicit). Plus, the HfG Offenbach is located less than 50 km away from the birthplace of western printing, and boasts a long history of collaboration with renowned institutions such as the Klingspor Museum and Linotype. What can students accomplish if they make use of all of their available resources?

A few months ago, several type students in Offenbach came together to celebrate the rich, common resources we have in our midst. The past is all well and good, we thought, but what bearing does it have on the future? To try and create a forum for our work and ideas, we formed the TypeOff collective. But in doing so, we realized that the richest resources available were not some fabled intuitions and traditions, but each other.

All the more reason to stay at home. Those students in The Hague and at Reading will continue to inspire and amaze us, but no matter; there’s work to be done here.

Dan Reynolds is a failed spirit, living in Berlin, but at least he finally has a dog. Occasionally, he designs typefaces (even one or two good ones), but he more often writes minor copy for typefoundries and font-retail websites. In 2015, he finally started working on the dissertation he planned in 2011; it is due in Spring 2018. Wish him luck! He really needs it.

60 Comments

  1. Hrant says:

    And the most important “region” is your own self! Formal education of any kind has a dark side: although you can acquire insight and practice at lightning speed, you can also have your own innate take on creativity subdued by the greater experience of your teachers, especially if they have one or more of the following qualities: dogma, self-importance, charisma. It is a very rare teacher indeed who has the desire -and ability- to serve the student to the fullest, by nurturing what’s inside the student instead of basically “channeling” himself through the student. If you have your own nature subdued in this way, it might take you many years to actually flower your own ideas – if ever. In contrast, being self-taught means you spend years wandering, and you run the risk of being a complete waste of time, but I feel you can usually arrive at truly interesting destinations sooner, and in a more gratifying manner. But it depends on the individual(s).

    The amount of formal education one should rely on depends on one’s own nature, as well as the nature of the school/teachers. From what I understand Reading is good at theory, KABK is good at practice; the former graduate with skills to write good articles for Typography Papers and Eye, and make some interesting tentative fonts; the latter with skills to make good Dutch fonts, which are admittedly inhigh demand. Both of those are good things, but neither of those is enough. Taking formal education too seriously generally results in very clever parrots who perpetuate and celebrate the status quo.

    hhp

  2. John Downer says:

    Dan,

    Have you any idea what Luc Devroye is known for promoting? Pay attention. He has an unhealthy penchant for acquiring illicitly copied font data for his own purposes. He routinely blames originators of digital fonts for being overly protective (read: greedy/ungenerous), and he defends font thieves to the hilt. They’re his allies: Nader, Papazian, the list goes on…

    Stealing is stealing. Devroye’s “academic” pursuits, regardless of their intentions, are not above the law. His perverse preoccupation with the “Big Type Foundries versus Mere End Users” theme is pure propaganda. It’s like a hit of smack that file-trading typetalk junkies crave. The question to ask Devroye is: how many commercial fonts in his possession were obtained without a paid license? Next, do the math and contact the Account Receivable department.

  3. John Hudson says:

    Hrant, I think you are underestimating the quality of output from Reading and the strengths of its programme. I don’t know enough about KABK programme or its graduates to comment on that, but your characterisation of Reading graduates coming out of a programme ‘good on theory’ with ‘skills to write good articles for Typography Papers and Eye, and make some interesting tentative fonts’ ignores the number of graduates who have successfully — and guickly — found paying work in the type business, where they are valued for both their design skills and, perhaps most importantly, their technical knowledge, which is something that the programme pushes very strongly.

  4. Hrant says:

    John, my feeling is that the Reading students who end up making good “mainstream” fonts upon graduation probably had it in them already. Which is not to say their skills weren’t honed at Reading.

    > I learn more from other people (in general) than from myself

    Sure, me too – most humans in fact. But note the significance of “formal” in what I wrote; my point is that informal education (like Typographica) is severely under-rated.

    hhp

  5. Dan Reynolds says:

    Hrant: yes, the “self” is very important. But I learn more from other people (in general) than from myself (through self-reflexion or whatever; of course I read a lot, and learn from that, but that is a bit different from what I’m trying to get at above). Just to recap, my use of the word “region” is relative to my own experiences. Of course everyone will have their own region(s) that they find themselves in (or that they might travel to).

    John D: Yes, I know. I also think that your comment is a well stated collarary to this dialogue. However, I think that an important part of being a student is exposing yourself to different view points and people. I’ve been working with the internet for over five years now, and I can’t figure out a way to get 20,000 daily hits to a website. Everytime a do a search for something typographic, Luc’s website comes up — and almost never with a free font link. For that body of research, which he does solely out of his own interests/wishes, I am thankful.

    Of course I think that font “sharing” is wrong! I lambast lax attitudes regularly on Typophile. Recently, I’ve started posting a lot on the bigger German-language type forums, too (typeFORUM, Typographie.info, Slanted). I wonder what the other people on these new forums think of me; all that I ever do (in sometimes awful German) is yell and scream about the necessity of paying for font licenses, how type design and fonts are intellectual property, and about how people who drop into forums asking for fonts to be e-mailed to them are trolls!

    On the TypeOff website, we also state our position against font-stealing, in both German and English: “Typefaces that are displayed on the TypeOff platform may not be distributed as freeware or shareware on other sites. TypeOff faces are not available for free download. All designs must be original creations; they may not be derived from commercially protected font files.” OK, it isn’t a draconian condemnation, but it illustrates something that we came into agreement on when the five of us started working together.

  6. i think that typedesign-education is in good hands where it is now in europe. anyone interested in doing technical or traditional typedesign can go and visit reading or den haag later if he or she would want to specialize. of course we are all jealous of the art school of leipzig, but not everyone is and will be.
    what would be possible for other european schools (or especially german open models of art & design schools like the one in offenbach), and what might also make sense for these schools is that regular typography classes stress more on re-inhabitating the alphabeth as alphabeth and not reducing it to `styles of representation`, either from a historical context or by visual analogy.

    fundamentally and questioning the forms practiced in den haag and reading.

    typedesign & tweaking (`fontengineering`) replaces `writing` in the mind of the technologically illiterate student. these Students do not make experiences anymore that type can be something useful beyond being formally appropriate and representing words of some language. if it would be possible to re-activate the potentials that students hold within themSELVES, mentally and technologically, i think this would contribute most progressively to the field of typography in general and also maybe help to build a basis for a dialog of typography beyond its professional field. i feel right now we are all talking to ourselves in monologes. typographic website on the internet proove this.

    i dont know how i got here – but this is my comment.

    Till

  7. John Butler says:

    However, I think that an important part of being a student is exposing yourself to different view points and people.

    Hey Dan, I got one of those “viewpoint” thingies:

    Prof. Devroye is a government employee using government resources to promote and facilitate the theft of intellectual property.

  8. Dan Reynolds says:

    John, Luc Devroye is currently living in Frankfurt, and we (Till, who posted above, and I) invited him to meet us for drinks. I think that turning this thread into a discussion on his ethics (or unethics) would be a mistake. I’m happy enough that he, or anyone else for that matter, even comes to our Stammtische. I doubt that anyone who has ever read anything I’ve ever written on one of these type forums could ever think that I agree with his font “sharing” ideas–I work for one of the “big foundries” he lambasts! At the same time, I believe in dialogue. I can sit and talk with him without supporting everything he says. If you came to Frankfurt, I’d hope that you would stop by the Stammtisch, too.

    When I was at RISD, I used to spend alot of time watching the students at Brown University. As many know, Brown is one of the most liberal places on the planet; they literally invented the term *politically correct.* Yet when Ralph Reed, the politician who catapulted the Christian Right into national power in the early 1990s, came to lecture, at least most students went to hear it, even if they knew they would disagree with him. Maybe we can learn something from this.

    When I wrote this article, I assumed that people would jump on it because of what I wrote about KABK and Reading vs. small regional schools, not what I wrote about Luc Devroye…

    Till, thank you for posting! (even though I’m sure that you’ll think my remarks here are just contributing to the “monologue”)

  9. It is unfortunate that some people insist on talking about things they know little about, when it really is so easy to learn. At Rdg theory exists on top of a full-time practical component, not taking chunks out of it — that’s why the programme is so demanding. It is exactly this dive into the theory and resources surrounding typeface design, in combination with a structured collaborative learning and review process that justify the investment in money and time, otherwise you may as well subscribe to the Fontlab forum.

    As for “interesting tentative fonts”, this is a little rich to say the least. The twenty-four graduates since 2000 have amongst them three TDC awards, two Bukva:raz selections, and one Morisawa award; five are employed as full-time typeface designers, at least fifteen are marketing their typefaces commercially — and successfully — themselves or through publishers like FontShop; seven amongst those are combining design practice with teaching design in their own right. And this includes the 2004 grads who are not all yet settled in their post-MA careers. Final font projects have substantial pan-european character sets, often including non-latin extensions; so far we’ve tackled Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, and Tibetan. These are are fully-functioning OpenType fonts (CFF or TTF depending on the project) that you could install and work with, not some proof-of-concept.

    So, please do your homework: go and check peoples’ work out, download the specs, ask around, visit the place. Just don’t be frivolous with things people in the same fora take seriously.

    As for:

    John, my feeling is that the Reading students who end up making good “mainstream” fonts upon graduation probably had it in them already. Which is not to say their skills weren’t honed at Reading.

    Well done, the great strategy of only admitting fully competent professional designers has been unmasked… Really, this is not only inconsistent, but insulting to a lot of people on several levels. You really need to take care before hitting the Send button.

  10. Gerry – Thank you for contributing to the conversation. I’m ashamed to say this is the first I’ve seen of your personal site and I appreciate your linking to Reading grads and their typefaces. A fine list indeed!

  11. Stephen, thanks for the kind words. I checked the links again: there was a permissions problem with David Cabianca’s Cardea specimen (fixed); and Keith Tam’s Arrival specimen was distilled for Acro 6 and would not show with the SchubertIT plugin for Safari (now also fixed). There’s one specimen that’s missing (Adi Stern’s Noam).

  12. Dan Reynolds says:

    Hi Gerry, I’m glad that Stephen posted that link to your site. Looking at it reminds me that I wanted to tell you that I will definitely be in London for TypoTechnica, and can’t wait to resume the discussion that we had just after the ATypI conference. I would also like to visit Reading if time allows. I haven’t ever been to Britain; how does one get to Reading from Central London?

    I would be neat if someone from KABK or from Leipzig would post on this threadďż˝

  13. John Downer says:

    As an independent type designer outside the career of full-time teaching who’s qualified to comment on both the Type & Media course at KABK and on the MA in Type Design program at Reading, let me first say that I taught at both locations last month. I met several of the KABK students in Prague before teaching their entire class, plus a few visiting alumni, for 3 days in The Hague. The following week, I taught at Reading for 5 days, and later spent time with those students in London. At both schools, I also lectured & demonstrated. It was not my first time lecturing or demonstrating at either place, but it was my first visit to Reading since the inception of the MA curriculum. I would not dispute the stats Gerry provided. They seem accurate. The program is relatively young, but it has already produced many high caliber type designers.

    KABK’s Type & Media course is a more established program, and its faculty is indeed primarily Dutch. This is not to say that the student body is likewise Dutch, nor that the type designs produced there all have a “Dutch” look. What the types produced there do have is functionality, appeal, & practical applications. They’re also perfectly original.

    Having taught type design at a number of institutions this calendar year alone, I reject the assertion made by hhp that “Formal education of any kind has a dark side.”

    The statement is false in more ways than one. It implies that formality is treacherous. It implies that pedagogy is never benevolent.

    I taught type design & typography at CalArts earlier this year.
    There was no “dark side” in evidence.

    I taught type design with Tal Leming at Cooper Union, too.
    No “dark side” there, either.

    In short, hhp’s characterizations of the Dutch and English programs are willfully misleading. They aim to malign and undermine the admirable work done by both faculty and students. Those groups are serious. Justifiably so. They are concentrated, select, well-prepared participants in the attainment of higher education. It’s refreshing to spend time with students who are motivated by competent, enthusiastic, and [sometimes necessarily] demanding faculty, and it’s a real treat to associate with bright, talented youngsters who love type and are willing to pay the price to get the best education they can find. Paying that price includes making the effort to learn hand lettering skills and solid drawing techniques. Type designers must be able to draw. Drawing is an expression-of-concept.

    The classroom in The Hague is full of excitement this academic year. The classroom in Reading is also brimming with high hopes. There is less a rivalry to be seen between the two schools than a comparable level of anticipation. It’s gong to be a great year. I was there to get them going, and they definitely won’t let us down. They’re the two top crops in the world right now. They set standards.

  14. Hrant says:

    Gerry, those “post-grad” resources are indeed useful – thank you.

    > only admitting fully competent
    > professional designers

    If this means what [I’m guessing] most people think it means, doesn’t that greatly affect Dan’s analysis?

    Is the KABK also open only to people who have already “arrived”? Knowing some people who recently started there, that seems unlikely.

    hhp

  15. Dan Reynolds says:

    This is not a thread about Hrant, or about any other individual person. Till pointed out (correctly) that type forums are all too often just a collection of individual monologues. I really don’t want to hear your opinons about Hrant, John, and I’m not going to respond to any further personal comments on this thread.

    Instead, I would like to hear your comments about the differences between your type design courses at CalArts & Cooper Union on the one hand, and KABK & Reading on the other. I’m also wondering what people from other schools reading this thread think, especially students. This is about “regionalism” and all. Even if some of us are mis-informed about the real nature of KABK and Reading’s programs, we know that they are out there. How many people know about what Fred Smeijers is doing in Leipzig, or what type students are doing in Hamburg (just to name two German examples).

    The “international” student catalogue/competition OUTPUT seems to have at least one type design project in it every year. Last year, there were Arabic bitmaps from LAU, and a type family from a student in Offenbach. This year, there is a sans serif from a student in Brazil. What these students are doing, and how they got there is what I would like to know, and was the reason behind my writing this article.

  16. I think Gerry was being facetious with that comment, Hrant.

  17. Hrant says:

    All your taunts will never get me to give up my dream of developing a sense of humor.

    BTW, speaking of the other side of the coin -informal education- do you guys think that something like this could somehow be made to have relevance to Typographica, Typophile, etc.?

    hhp

  18. John Hudson says:

    Hrant, Gerry was being facetious, pointing out that your claim that the Reading graduates who have succeeded ‘had it in them already’ implies that the programme must do a great job of only selecting people who don’t need to be in the programme. The fact that Gerry didn’t put in a cheap smiley simply indicates his commitment to serious and adult communication: he expects people to be able to recognise sarcasm.

  19. Miss Tiffany says:

    Dan –> Start at Paddington train station after 9:00a (for less expensive return tickets for students with travel passes) –> Get on a fast-track to Reading (usually 1 or 2 stops) –> once at Reading, get a taxi to White Knights. Easy peasy.

    All –> Even in a “formal” educational environment there is floundering. A good teacher knows when to hand the pencil back to the student and allow them the opportunity to discover how it feels in their own hand. But, a good teacher also knows when to hold the pencil with the student and guide them. I see nothing wrong with that. Those people who chose a formal education expect that. Do people learn to ride a bike without having seen others ride and then either with training wheels or a parent behind them?

    Any school suffers when they allow too many students into the classroom.

    This is exactly what I felt at Reading. (Although I was in the MA History program, not Type Design.) They are a nurturing group of teachers that also happen to know when to close their doors and expect the student to figure it out for themselves. I would not have grown as much as I did without that amount of give and take.

  20. Dan Reynolds says:

    Thanks, Tiffany.

  21. Dan Reynolds says:

    What was your thesis topic at Reading, Tiffany?

  22. Miss Tiffany says:

    You are welcome, Dan.

    A handful Dwiggins’ experimental typefaces.

  23. Dan Reynolds says:

    Thanks Paul!

    Rest assured, we are doing everything we can. Our biggest problem (and I don’t want to air our schools dirty laundry here, so I’m going to avoid details on the politics) is that the school has decided to cut graphic design more or less out of its curriculum, and is going to focus on Product Design, Fine Art (Painting, Computer Art, and Film, etc.), and Advertising. Typography is old fashioned, as far as the school is concerned, i.e., it shouldn’t get any new money or resources. German universities usually hire one professor for each area of study. This means that there is ONE professor in Offenbach who is responsible for everything typographic. When he started teaching 20 years ago, many other teachers had typographic projects in their classes, too. Now, this is rarer (although it still happens). He feels sort of defeated, and doesn’t want to “fight” the other professors anymore. That is why we formed our collective in the first place. Sort of as an action group for type.

    The city of Offenbach is unfortunately only known for a few things, the invention of lithography, a terrible soccer team, a long-departed leather industry, being ugly, and typography. Since typography was always a key historical element of the city’s only college, the new professors sadly see it as old fashioned tradition. This means that they see todays typographic technological advances as being as illrelevant as they see Rudolf Koch’s calligraphic fraktur designs for the Klingspor foundry! (although, I think that Koch is *still* relevant today, but that is another matter).

    So far, the official word is: no money for guest lecturers. But, we have gotten some money under the table to travel, and we travel a lot on top of that!

    And by all means, we aren’t supporting “regionalism” at the expense of internationalism. Two of us are Americans!

  24. Thank you, John Downer, for your kind words about the students in The Hague. And I believe you very much that the spirit found in the The Hague classroom is similar in Reading.

    Dan,
    As a teacher at the postgraduate course Type]Media of the KABK I am much in favour of regionalism too. Although I would like to call it “background” or perhaps “nature”.

    At the course we start every year – the course is only one year long – with ten new students who flew in from all over the globe. Our current crop has people from Russia, Finland, Australia, Croatia, United States and many more countries.

    I know that there is a typical Dutch (and even a typical The Hague) style in type design and of course our students are nourished in this environment. However, since these people come from such completely different backgrounds it’s impossible to superimpose “Le Go’t Hollandais” on them. And as a teacher I don’t want to do that either. I want them to be as original as possible in their work, and that is only possible when they remain themselves. I am there to guide them and – occasionaly – confuse them and confront them with contradictory opinions. So, in that sense I’m in favour of regionalism.

    I think TypeOff is a very healthy initiative and I encourage all its members to continue to make yourselves heard to the board of the school. Demand that your school will organize workshops about type design. Invite lecturers to come. And most important of all, discuss your work among each other. When I was still a student, I learned just as much from my teachers as I learned from my fellow students.

  25. Hrant says:

    > we aren’t supporting “regionalism”
    > at the expense of internationalism.

    To paraphrase a common proverb:
    Don’t try to regurgitate your cake.

    hhp

  26. Dan Reynolds says:

    I just wanted to point out that TypeOff isn’t just five German students, Hrant, but rather two German students, one German recent graduate, two American students… and coming soon onto the site, one Greek product design student. What brings us together is a wish to do work in this one specific space, not necessarially just being from that one specific space. Sorry for regurgitating my cake.

  27. i want to add a short comment on the “school” in offenbach.

    the “defeatedness” of our “ONE” generally has to do with the “split head” of the school, which is exactly the question of formal or not. in short: one division seems to believe that so called “new media” is bigger, better and faster and that “old media” (in consequence) are stones in their shoes and the other division just cant get used to the way students creative-processes are automated by introducing more and more software in education and by shifting from a theory and reflection-processes to instruction and manufacture-processes.

    this also creates a gap between student and students and students and professors. the so called “New media” is not yet understood as being “…no longer concerned with seeing or representing the world in new ways but rather with accessing and using in new ways previously accumulated media.”(i cant say it better than Lev Manovich). i believe that lots of students, especially those going towards an applied field are highly unfamiliar with these “ideas” and so they rush for practical technology driven practice and tend to “vote” for “instruction”.

    this is propably similar at similar schools anywhere in germany and also elsewhere. i just wonder what is the best typographically since it is a concerned with technology as much as no other “creative”-class. workshops are great but typedesign often is to specific and turns towards being too technical. i fear that for most of the german artschools workshops like underware only make sense for schools with bigger graphic-design-only departments (ours i think not). learning in a german art & design school (at least university level) are traditionally very autodidactic and this is (i think) good.

    i agree that there is nothing wrong with formal education generally but what if you wanted not-formal and then get formal? – till

    PS: Tiffany – i guess a teacher who can make students “operate” then is not a good teacher. :)

    PS2: of course this all belongs to the Corporate Universities threat and not to defense of Regionalism threat.

  28. Dan Reynolds says:

    Till, what do you mean by a Corporate University (vs. a Regional one)?

    Do you mean to say that KABK and Reading are “corporate” because they are more established, or do you mean the schools that receive a lot of funding from private industries and corporations (like many of the other design schools in Germany)?

  29. Dan Reynolds says:

    >learning in a german art & design school (at least university level) are traditionally very autodidactic and this is (i think) good.

    I just wanted to comment on this statement of Till’s, because it refers to a duality in education that is especially practiced within Germany.

    Germany has several types of universities. These cannot be viewed entirely as “equals”, but rather a steps on a staircase, or maybe even as parallel universes. “Universitďż˝ten” are universities with a capital U, like they are known in the American and Anglo-Saxon systems. They teach humanities (like law and philosophy) and sciences (like chemistry, but not engineering). Then there are “Fachhochschulen.” These used to be just trade schools, but now confer university level degrees. To make matters more complicated, the German government has decided that the english translation of Fachhochschule is “University of Applied Sciences.” These schools teach things that are practical, like engineering, computer science, marketing, architecture, and also graphic design. In the past few years, Fachhochschulen have gotten a lead in German society, you might say. Their graduates have been “taught” in school, and prepared for the actually business world. They often get jobs much quicker than University graduates, and they sometimes finish their degrees quicker. But their degrees carry hindrances. They can’t be professors at Universities (just other Fachhochschules), and they can’t get PhDs.

    Germany has a few historic art “Academies,” many of which also teach design. These tend to carry real university accredidation. The HfG in Offenbach is one of these schools. In theory, theory is just as important at our school as practice, but this isn’t accurate, even though we have to write a lot. The idea is that we also receive more rounded, long design educations than our fellow students who attend Fachhochschulen (more people study design at Fachhochschulen than anywhere else). But some of our neighboring Fachhochschulen teach graphic design very well, and their graduates are more prepared to work as entry-level designers than ours are. Offenbach students are not trained to ever become entry-level designers, although a lot of them become those. Rather, the idea is, since we come from a University, that we will all work independently (like artists), found new companies, or become professors or writers.

    (Thomas Nagel, who graduated from the HfG and the 80s, and who founded Xplicit after working at Meta for years, once told me that a lot of our students just end up as taxi drivers, though…)

  30. John Hudson says:

    I’ve long admired the original mediaeval model of the university, in which teachers were paid directly by their students. So if a group of people were interested in studying typography, they could pool their money and pay for a typography professor. This needn’t be incompatible with state funding of education, since each student could be given tutorial vouchers to pay accredited teachers. So the decision about what is taught is made by the people who are being taught, not by an administrator. Teachers and students could meet at the beginning of each year and discuss what possible things might be taught and why this or that topic is important. Alternatively, the teachers could just stand up and start teaching — as they did in the Middle Ages — and if they drew a group of students, they would get paid. Higher education as a form of busking!

    Day dreaming…

  31. Dan Reynolds says:

    So how much do we have to pay you to bring you to Offenbach, John :)

  32. Hrant says:

    John, I like that too. But even more appealing to me is apprenticeship, where a beginner basically learns through working with a master, doing a lot of the “menial” stuff first, but not paying anything. This opens the door to people with talent but no money, and provides a highly elegant transition when the master retires. On the other hand, you can’t have a band of students/apprentices all at once.

    hhp

  33. Cahal says:

    The discussion above is really refreshing.

    I am undecided as to my comments impression on this distinguished forum…I studied in Reading University. Accepted on a portfolio of a typographic nature at the age of 17 – many years ago.

    Rebellious streak denied me a grounding in many, many things which now – as a successful, yet “better than most, not as good as some” type of way, typogphapher and graphic designer…..I missed most of my lectures. I regret every second of those four years.

    I was surrounded by experience and knowledge.

    Experience and knowledge taught the ‘apprentices’ in our trade. If you can be present with one…you will be better than the next man. Not better as a man, but better in your craftmanship – and that is what I really look back on in Reading. Craftsmen and Craftswomen, knowledgable and enthused and excited – about design and typography – its traditions and……what an environment to sit in for a while.

    Thanks Micheal Twyman. Ken Garland, Peggy Smyth. Paul Stiff……

  34. From the POV of education outcomes there are serious limitations with the apprenticeship model, especially if it forms the totality of a learner’s experience. It relies too much on the goodwill of the master and their ability to document and explain what they are doing; by revolving around specific deliverables precludes the development of generalised approaches and transferable skills; makes reflection on and extrapolation from practice counter-intuitive; compromises any projects that require research and/or testing outside the ‘workshop’ — fatally so if the subject is cross-disciplinary in nature; and disadvantages any moves into practice areas the master cannot anticipate. The reverse of all the above is primarily what conventional higher education is supposed to be good at. An oversimplified example: working alongside an experienced designer may help you learn how to produce fonts probably as well as (s)he, with a rather small probability that you would exceed the master’s level; but it will not teach you _why_ the master is doing what (s)he is doing, or how to extract lessons into areas the master is clueless, both in stylistic terms or more fundamental (e.g. another script).
    We just finished being externally reviewed at departmental level for our quality of teaching and support (all ok, thanks for asking) and one of the things flagged as exceptionally important was our enabling students to have direct and hands-on access to substantial collections (which are of a level that merited the description “national treasure” — apologies for the trumpet-blowing). This opportunity to contextualise is something an apprenticeship programme could never offer.
    In my experience a mixture of both approaches has benefits; but, depending on the level of the students, you should adjust accordingly the programme’s expectations for self-directed teaching.

  35. Hrant says:

    Apprenticeship does indeed rely even more on the capacities of the teacher than academia, which makes the darker side of formal education even darker. But it also has a saving grace: you can leave with virtually no penalty. Something like Reading is much more of commitment, not least financially; and I think it goes without saying that people tend to speak glowingly about something they’ve paid a lot of money for. But it’s not just financial, there’s sort of an abstract loyalty (one not tied to individual teachers) when you go to university (and of course that has a very positive side), and this can reduce objectivity. There’s certainly an element of loyalty in the case of apprenticeship too, but basically it’s much easier to change your mind, maybe because it’s at the level of individuals. Saying “Reading wasn’t good for me” reflects much worse on you than “Dwiggins wasn’t good for me”.

    To me the only serious problem with apprenticeship is that it’s not highly scalable. And this happens to be where universities cash in.

    > a mixture of both approaches has benefits

    Indeed I agree, and an even more significant “symbiosis” I see is between formal and informal learning. As imperfect as something like Typophile for example is, it provides a “massively parallel” so to speak model that complements formal education really well, alleviating the dark side of each half. Informal education is particularly good at combatting the inherent limitations of apprenticeship (that you listed so well).

    hhp

  36. >But it also has a saving grace: you can leave with virtually no penalty.

    Not so. The master usually is the key to further employment for the apprentice. The PhD dissertation, which is basically an apprentice situation, has been full of abuse, with many careers ruined.

    On the other hand, there is nothing to replace close contact with a real master in a field. On the other other hand, as a guitar teacher once said to me: “It’s not the teacher, it’s the student.”

    The truth about teaching and learning is very complicated.

  37. Hrant says:

    PhD? That’s not at all what I meant by apprenticeship. I meant like Dan working under Carter.

    > The truth about teaching and learning is very complicated.

    Indeed.
    With all components having good and bad aspects.

    hhp

  38. Hrant, I don’t know if you’ve cottoned on to your insulting students by implying that they do not have the integrity to be honest about something they paid for. Your “it goes without saying” assertion of this is disputed even in the string of comments above, where Dan is talking quite frankly about Offenbach.
    As for the “abstract loyalty (one not tied to individual teachers) when you go to university” this is very much not my experience: any feelings a graduate of a programme may have can only be _directly and inextricably_ linked to the particulars of the experience that person had as a student; if this experience is unfulfilling then there’s nothing that will change that person’s mind. That someone may choose to pump up an institution they attended and are not happy with is a rather immature take on people, and I would argue also demonstrates a lack of relevant experience. To close the circle, your assertion that the fact alone that someone has simply graduated from an HE programme would “reduce objectivity” is again insulting to both these graduates, and the teachers representing these institutions: fostering independent, critical thinking is enshrined in the qualifications framework for MA programmes in the UK in very concrete terms, and I cannot imagine that it would be too different elsewhere.
    If I read annoyed at your frivolous armchair theorising it is because I make my living in the very environment you maintain so distorts and clouds the minds of students; this is a picture I do not recognize. Is it suprising that we have not read any comments from a student or graduate saying, even anonymously, that they felt under pressure to present their university in terms that do not reflect their own appreciation of the place? This is not the 30s when 5-10 % of the population went to university and it was A Big Thing; in the UK we are closing in on 45%. Universities have no illusions that students and graduates will be very frank about the education they receive; this openness has in fact been a great incentive to change things quite drastically in the HE sector.

  39. Well, after Gerry’s post, I feel that I must chime in. I have been offended by Hrant’s comments throughout this thread but held back because I was not a Reading Type design MA, but instead a Reading Typography History and Theory MA and now a Typography History PhD.

    I think that it is ridiculous to claim that because one spends a high amount of money to achieve their post-graduate degrees that one has an abstract loyalty to the institution. Granted, my time at Reading has not been easy, it is not easy for anyone. It is a difficult program that constantly challenges the student and it has both positive and negative aspects to it, just as any other program in any other city around the world. I have a loyalty to Reading but it is not abstract. I do not, nor have ever, felt the need to portray the program in any other way than my honest opinion, and I often make sure that it is percieved as that, just as my opinion. I often tell people that ask me about the program that it will be what they need it to be — it will be their own experience and not mine. I avoid giving them details about my experience because that’s all it was — my experience. I also disagree with Hrant’s comment (‘Saying “Reading wasnďż˝t good for me” reflects much worse’) because being able to analyse the institution and your experience at it signifies a knowledge of your own education needs.

    But most of all, Hrant’s comment about graduate schools accepting already professional designers was completely annoying. If we already knew how to write a PhD thesis, we would not be in the program. If we already knew about the in-depth historical and theoretical typographic topics, we would not be in the program. Higher-level education can attract people with extra drive, but everyone comes to it from different starting points. Hrant does not know the backgrounds of every student in any of the MA programs at Reading, nor the PhD ones either and I would advise him to avoid generalizations about topics such as these.

    But going back to Dan’s original point, it is difficult to pursue your own interests in typography. I found it challenging as an undergraduate in North Carolina in the early ’90s but it is doable. Find people that do it. Talk to them. Write to them. Read what they wrote. Analyse what they did. Read everything you can. Attend conferences. It takes a bit of effort, but you’ll find that the energy that you put in will certainly pay off in the end. This crazy typographic world doesn’t come easy.

  40. Dan Reynolds says:

    Find people that do it. Talk to them. Write to them. Read what they wrote. Analyse what they did. Read everything you can. Attend conferences. It takes a bit of effort, but you�ll find that the energy that you put in will certainly pay off in the end.

    Thank you, Shelly. This is exactly how I feel.

  41. Hrant says:

    Instead of being so eager to feel insulted, understand that I’m not ignorant (I know a lot more about Reading students than you think, although still not enough), I just have a different perspective on it all*. Surely you can admit that a person can be too close to something to be 100% objective about it. This should go without saying, but apparently it doesn’t.

    * I’m from a different place than you. That shouldn’t serve as an opportunity to get angry, but instead to grow.

    What are some important faults of Reading and KABK, and formal education in general? And I don’t mean things like “it would be nice to have fancier graphics cards”. Are they perfect? Nobody would dare claim that. But we still never hear public discussion of what can be improved, and also what are inherent problems in formal education*. I think Dan might in fact be trying to do that, so let’s not turn it into an opportunity for personal bravado or spin.

    * For some reason we do hear a lot about the problems with informal education, mostly when university teachers (and others who might feel threatened by free -if disorganized- learning) chime in once in a while on places like Typophile -or even the ATypI list- to say it’s a waste of time.

    Some Reading students I’ve talked to in private have pointed out problems – although they’ve asked I not share them*. One of them even said it was a waste. Which of course doesn’t mean it’s not amazingly great for others. So the point is, how can individual students improve their chances that they match the personality requirements of the institution -and teachers- and formal education? And what can the institutions do to make things more harmonious, and improve themselves?

    * And why this fear? Maybe it has to do with the highly defensive attitude I think it present is this thread.

    I love Reading. Some years ago I was thinking of attending. But then I realized I wouldn’t fit in. For the same reason I’m unlikely to ever win anything at the TDC. Which doesn’t mean people don’t pay me money to make fonts, or encourage my ideas – they do.

    Know yourself, and vie for improvement, instead of worrying more about public perception. Don’t get increasingly angry, get increasingly good.

    hhp

  42. Hrant says:

    You all think I’m insulting you, while I think you’re denying human nature — which everybody does to some extent, so it’s not like I think you’re below me or something.

    > Hrant’s comment about graduate schools
    > accepting already professional designers
    > was completely annoying.

    I didn’t say that.

    Please don’t get so excited.

    Attend college; Reading, or any college, please. I did so, and I don’t regret it. All I’m saying is see the dark side, the yin/yang of it all, which I think even William was alluding to, but you’re not attacking and insulting him, just the guy who’s candid.

    hhp

  43. Dan Reynolds says:

    Admittantly, all I know about Reading and KABK comes from discussions with a few students, a few graduates, and a few professors at each school, as well as from their websites. So please correct if anything I say is incorrect.

    One of the things that I find attractive about KABK is their practical workshops. John Hudson pointed out in a recent typophile thread that one of the most important elements in a type education program is programming. While I’m not 100% sure about this, I am pretty sure that all of the practical workshops that go on in the Hague do not distract from the students learning the technical side of things. The students seem to learn both. Amazingly, students at both schools seem to learn just about everything!

    Gerry, in Prague you said that Reading did not have the resources to offer stone carving, for instance. I assume that you meant the financial resources necessary to fund such a project. KABK seems to find the resources for things like this. Is KABK’s program better funded that Reading’s? I’d be very interested to hear about the funding situations and differences. If I were a prospective student at either of these schools (which I’m not), funding would be very important to me. It is key to a lot of other things.

    Coming back to Offenbach, the combined budget for the undergrad/grad typography courses is between 1,000 and 10,000 Euros. This means that aside from the Professor’s salary, and the cost of maintaining the room, etc, some amount of money (the exact amount of which I do not know) is earmarked to be spent by the professor at his disgression. This isn’t very much money, and that is important to know. Also what is important to know is that even though this money exists, very little of it is ever spent.

    I expect that the budget of KABK & Readings graduate programs run much higher, especially because both schools of these schools charge tuition, whereas German schools do not.

  44. quis says:

    As a first year Reading student who’s been reading this site since before I attended I’d just like to make one point of fact about what’s being said here. There is no difference (currently at least) in what I’d pay to attend Reading as opposed to anywhere else in the UK, excluding perhaps the extra cost of living in London. In relation to the total price of the education, and how much of it actually comes out of my own pocket, the difference is minimal. So it is not like I’m paying more to attend Reading over any of my other choices. I don’t think I have a bias towards Reading for finacial reasons. Maybe this isn’t so relevant to post-grads, but I think it’s worth noting.

  45. John Hudson says:

    John Hudson pointed out in a recent typophile thread that one of the most important elements in a type education program is programming.

    That isn’t what I said, Dan. What I said was that digital font making is software development, and that most of what of what needs to be learned is technical rather than creative. This doesn’t imply programming per se. I can’t program. I can just about edit, by trial and error, an existing Python script, but that’s about it. I have little doubt that I could learn to program, but I have not found this so essential yet that I have spared time from other things.

    What I mean when I talk about the importance of technical knowledge, and of font making as software development, is that there are tools and processes that need to be learned. And these need to be learned not just to the extent of being able to express one’s creativity by making a font (which you can do with Fontographer), but in terms of making a robust, spec-conformant, quality-assured piece of software.

  46. Dan Reynolds says:

    What I mean when I talk about the importance of technical knowledge, and of font making as software development, is that there are tools and processes that need to be learned.

    I’m sorry John. When I said programming, I meant this. I know that it is very important, but like Till said above we are interested in seeing if there are routes other than the conventional one. Probably there aren’t, but it doesn’t hurt to investigate or ask, does it?

  47. Keith Tam says:

    As a graduate of the MA Typeface Design program at Reading and the Communication Design program at Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver (where I teach now) – two very different, if not completely opposite, schools – I think I could offer pretty candid comments about both of these places and attest to the benefits and weaknesses of both of them. Reading is more rational and rigorous, while ECI is more conceptual and intuitive. I have a tendency to be extremely critical of the environment that I’m in. At ECI, I was probably the only student in my class who would read type history books and design type in my spare time and actually look at typographic details and structure. At Reading, I wondered why we were so structured, technical and rigid – I wanted to draw, and I wanted calligraphy. Now that I’ve graduated from both of these places, I can say that the two schools complimented each other perfectly.

    I would be fair to say that people who are interested in pursuing postgraduate studies in any field are likely to be ones who have are truly passionate about the subject. If you’re passionate in something, it is more likely that you will excel. If an institution could sustain and facilitate the growth of this passion, then it has succeeded. Both of the institutions I studied at did this for me, regardless of their weaknesses. Look at any curriculum of any institution or program, you will find that there are weak points and inadequacies – not so much “dark sides”. I don’t believe that one single institution could be responsible for a person’s professional growth. It was my conscious decision to be exposed to completely different viewpoints of design in my education. The best way to learn, I feel, is to be open about these opinions and viewpoints and think for yourself – any opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. There is no longer one definitive way or school of thought to designing anymore, typographic or otherwise. In my humble opinion, education fails when a school is only interested in cloning their version of the “ideal” designer. The most exciting thing about design today is its diversity of approaches and opinions. Having studied and now teaching in Vancouver, I came to understand what diversity really means. With students from so many different parts of the world, they bring with them a wealth of experiences and cultural backgrounds into our school. They are not blank slates. Design is more interesting when the designers bring their own experiences and insights into the picture. Students have the power to influence the environment that they are in – the school is learning and growing as much as the students are.

    You don’t have to spoon-feed knowledge to a truly passionate student. He/she will take pains to learn by him/herself. There is nothing you could do to stop that. Much of what you get out of any institution, perhaps, is not the simply the knowledge and skills you acquire but the environment, culture and the people you happen to work with and meet. And that’s a pretty serendipitous experience.

  48. Gerry, in Prague you said that Reading did not have the resources to offer stone carving, for instance.

    I actually said that, given the choice, I would prefer students did stone carving than calligraphy. I then made the point that I have to prioritise my resource allocation (in the wider sense: money for visitors, internal staff time, TA hours, student contact hours, and overall student workload).
    To explain further: finding a good stone cutter is not an issue (and all the easels and mallets are just down the corridor). Deciding where resources, as outlined above, should be allocated is a critical one. Choices like this are what gives each programme its character.

    How do you make these choices? The parameters are numerous, but if I had to boil them down I would focus on two aspects. One has to do with value-added for graduates in the long run: what will position them better to build the sort of careers they aspire to? The other goes back to the education vs apprenticeship dichotomy; do I want to run a programme that produces architects or builders? Although the skills aspect is indeed present — and heavily so, as evidenced by the exceptional output — I aim for the MATD to bring students face to face with the less expected aspects in the field, and definitely areas they would not come across if they were self-taught or just had access to a few short courses. A long list comes here, from developing an appreciation for the history of the field, to tackling some of the theoretical issues, to scraping the surface of the cognitive psychology literature that is relevant, to understanding how technology interacts with design choices, and so on. So, one week we may have a pretty down-to-earth session on developing testing documents and processes, but the next have someone like Richard Southall (in my opinion by far the most intelligent commentator in this area) talking about how technology captures designers’ intentions across different design & production paradigms.

    Learning how to do something is easy: you learn by doing, and experimenting, and RTFM; and always in reference to something that should come out at the other end. But in an educational environment you shoule expect to be challenged in ways that will allow you to delve into the context and the causality of things happening; and to identify where in your activity there may be decision points, what the parameters may be, and the range of their values; and to be forced to reflect on why are you approaching a situation in a particular manner, and what conditions circumscribe your response.

    A simple way into this area of enquiry is the question “how do you evaluate and explain quality in design without ambiguity?” — a daily torment for any teacher. As a professional field Design has been abysmally ineffective in establishing generally understood criteria and a language for this, and I would argue that the self-referential model of apprenticeship does not help one bit: unlike education, training is devoid of capacity for discourse.
    So, we should continue talking, within and across programmes, at conferences and get-togethers and amongst individuals, in person and online — but with rigour: precicely, comprehensively, and consistently.

  49. John Hudson says:

    Coincidentally, I was talking this afternoon with a student in a publishing programme who is writing an essay on Unicode, and she asked me if I planned to teach type design at some stage. This question, combined with the discussion here, has me thinking about the nature of my approach to type design, which is largely intuitive and that of an autodidact, and the lack of a theoretical structure that would enable me to communicate my skills to another person. This may be one reason why, when it comes to talking about type education, I focus almost entirely on the technical, because that I can teach: I know the content and have a pretty good idea how it should be presented. And I think this is because the technical stuff has its own structure, and does not require me to provide a framework of understanding.

    In order to be able to teach type design per se, I think I would first have to spend a long time analysing how I design, in order to construct a framework that would enable me to communicate ideas about design. This is something that I am conscious of when I look at the programme at Reading, which seems to provide students with both a practical and critical understanding of design, while my own understanding is almost entirely practical. I find, for instance, that I can critique a student design once it is in a fairly advanced state, and provide suggestions for how it might be improved, but I don’t think I would be able to do what Gerry, Gerard, Fiona and the other instructors at Reading do: guide a student developing initial design ideas without either imposing my own ideas or standing so far back as to be useless. This relates, I think, to Gerry’s comments about the problems of the apprenticeship model: it will not teach you _why_ the master is doing what (s)he is doing, or how to extract lessons into areas the master is clueless, both in stylistic terms or more fundamental (e.g. another script).

    However, I don’t think Gerry’s particular example of ‘another script’ is a good one, at least not in my experience, since for any non-native to design for a foreign script (presuming he is any good at all) is necessarily to learn about a system, and that comes with its own structure and suggests frameworks of understanding that can, in turn, be tested on other scripts. So even though I can’t necessarily guide a student to producing a design for a given script, I believe can teach him or her how to think about writing systems as systems. Indeed, I am going to be attempting that very thing at Reading in March.

  50. Hrant says:

    > definitely areas they would not
    > come across if they were self-taught

    I’d be curious to hear an elaboration on that. What areas of type design are simply impossible to learn “informally”?

    > but with rigour

    There’s that word again! As I’ve said before elsewhere, to me rigor is only half the story. And I think my position might in fact relate to some things Keith expressed so well above.

    BTW, what John just wrote makes me ask something that’s been bothering me since something one Reading student told me: Did any former (or I guess current – although I don’t expect them to chime in…) students get the impression that the Latin script was given some level of “primacy”, even when directly designing non-Latin type?

    hhp

  51. John Hudson says:

    As I understand it, it is a requirement of the programme at Reading that students design a Latin typeface. They are actively encouraged to also design a non-Latin as time and the scope of their Latin type permits, and most choose to do so as a companion for the Latin. So in this sense I think you can say, yes, the Latin script is given some primacy in the programme, but I think there are good reasons for this relating to both the location of the school (I would expect a type design programme in Yerevan to give primacy to the Armenian script, or in Addis Ababa to give primacy to the Ethiopic script) and to the expertise of the individual teachers. Having all students design a Latin typeface ensures that they all receive the same level of instruction and feedback, which would not be possible if they were all designing different scripts, only some of which were intimately known by the instructors. One thing I have noticed in the work of Reading students is that the quality of Greek designs is generally higher than that of, for instance, Cyrillic designs (with the significant exception of Veronika Burian’s Maiola), which is obviously due to Gerry’s particular expertise.

  52. Yes, you have to do a pan-European Latin; for the reasons John outlined, and because it is much easier for people to learn certain development and testing processes if they are already proficient users of the scipt. There is also the matter of the discourse being overwhelmingly focusing on the Latin script; students would need to tackle that anyway. And then is the matter of graduates wanting to have a decent-sized market for their fonts.

    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]

  53. Dan Reynolds says:

    [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!

  54. I very much agree with what Keith Tam said. If you’re passionate (which everyone should be) you will excel and no institution can serve everything, I am on an exchange program right now and I think there has to be some degree of local connection, there simply has to be a position of any kind. Either to reject or to start from. Otherwise there is no discourse.

    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.

  55. Hrant says:

    > I would expect a type design programme
    > in Yerevan to give primacy to

    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

  56. Dan Reynolds says:

    Till, that conference sounds fantastic! Please let us know what goes down at it.

  57. Eduardo Omine says:

    Dan, where can one get more information about this Output competition? Do they have a website?

  58. Dan Reynolds says:

    Eduardo:

    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.

  59. David Cabianca says:

    Some clarification to muddy the waters further:

    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.

  60. Jonathan Selig says:

    I’ve been interested in the program at Reading for a while, and until Stephen pointed me to this I had no knowledge of the other school.

    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.

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