Why You Should Learn Typeface Design
You wake up in the late morning. Make your way into a Starbucks for some coffee. And there it is:
Your work, all over the store. You made the font that’s all over this Starbucks. And not just in this one store. In every store in the United States.
This is one story in my life as a typeface designer.
Who am I?
I’m Thomas Jockin. A 10 year veteran in typeface design. Previous clients include Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Foot Locker and Express. I’ve published critically acclaimed typefaces such as Azote and Garçon Grotesque.
At this juncture I see three reasons I think you should love typeface design:
Expression
Each curve drawn, each swash, each side-bearing you set is a personal expression on your sensibility and aesthetic. It’s a small dent in the world, but a font you made can potentially affect millions of people’s lives.
Legacy
Work you’ve done could exist anywhere for anytime. Digital fonts from 30 years ago can still be used today, anywhere in the world. Can we say the same with any other technology? Will that app or website your working on still be around in 5 years?
Community
Typeface design is a multi-discipline industry, with designers usually work independently, on their own hours. Working in this field will allow you to meet incredibly intelligent people in the areas of computer programming, linguistics, calligraphy, lettering, technologists, and more.
This all can be yours.
There’s lots of scattered resources for typeface design. There’s classes and workshop for it. You can even apprentice under typeface designers doing their grunt production work to learn your way. All those methods mentioned are how I became a typeface designer over 10 years.
That doesn’t have to happen to you.
What took me almost a decade to learn, you can learn in a fraction of that time. If you take action right now you can be on the path to a new way of working.
The Next Steps
Don’t know where to start? I hold Officehours every Monday 12–1pm EST. Officehours is free 10 mins sessions with industry experts. Book your slot now.
Need a step-by-step guide to learning typeface design? TypeThursday will be launching a comprehensive guide to learning typeface design in the new year. Sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know about it.
Have work you’d like expert input on? Like to hang out with fellow type lovers? Come to the monthly type design meet up called TypeThursday. Our next meet up is December 5th. RSVP to attend.
What’s TypeThursday like? Below are tweets from TypeThursday attendees:
Our next meet up is December 5th. RSVP to attend.
The first 8 RSVPs will win a FREE specimen book from Production Type.
