The Summer Guide to Typography 2016: Where to go, what to learn

Some people would like to enjoy just a vacation. Others want to learn and become even more wise whilst spending the days of summer exploring their choice of craftsmanship. Dedicated to the typophiles who never cease to explore more aspects of the letterform, we present you with Typeroom’s Summer Holiday guide. From Paris through Thessaloniki to Seattle, these are the spots that matter for a more than hot Summer of Type.

Typographics 2016, June
A 10-day design festival “for people who use type” Typographics is devoted to contemporary typography, with talks, work­shops, and tours focusing on where typography is today and where its future may lie. From the 13th to the 23rd of June, a series of workshops and tours have been scheduled with Type@Cooper before and after the conference (17-18), with options focusing on everything from hand lettering to responsive typography.

Most of the Typographics festival will take place at The Cooper Union, in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, a reason for being there on its own. The school is the alma mater of many noteworthy typographers and lettering artists including Herb Lubalin, Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, and Lou Dorfsman.

Type@Paris, June
We know that you are more than ready to dig in to type design in a hands-on, intensive setting. On top of that, we are certain that spending five weeks in Paris doing so, will get you excited.

The Type@Paris program begins on June 15, and its instructors include Jean François Porchez, Mathieu Réguer, and Malou Verlomme as the core team to guide students through five weeks of learning type design from top to bottom. The total program comprises a remarkable 160 hours of instruction.

Beyond the core team of instructors, weekly guest critics will be invited to review the work of the participants. These will be typographers and type designers with considerable experience in the industry. Based in Paris and launched by the Typofonderie team in 2015, TypeParis is an intensive type design programme. “Our unique approach continues the long tradition that started in France back in the 1970’s” say the people responsible for a very French typographic education for the summer.

British Typography and Branding Week, June - July
“This programme broadened my mind, inspired and motivated me. I think the best of what I am doing right now happened partially because of this experience” said Olga Semyonova, art-director at TBWA of the British Typography and Branding Week.

The typographic event which takes place this June is ready to answer to numerous questions. “What is British Typography and Branding and why is it different from Dutch or German? Why does every piece of British Design have a very distinct style with typography as the main element? Was it always there or did it only appear in 60s? Did it get to the end in the 90s? Can a non-british designer become a british typographer? Where can we find examples of British Typography and how can we use them?” These are some of the many questions that will be answered during this five day typographic fest, customized for any typophile.

“This programme will help you to build a skeleton of typographic wisdom, that you will be able to build on in future” and includes lectures, workshops, visits to exhibitions, self-study work and professional discussions.

ICTVC 2016, July
The 6th International Conference on Typography & Visual Communication (ICTVC) is taking place on 7, 8 and 9 July in Thessaloniki, Greece. The already established worldwide major event keeps exploring the world of typography and visual communication and since its inception in 2002, people from diverse fields and different disciplines with a passion for visual language research, education, and practice, contribute to the conference. A series of workshops will precede the conference (5 & 6 July) and the exhibitions will constitute an important part of the event that attracts speakers and delegates on an international scale, and from a wide range of disciplines related to typography and design.

This year’s theme “Discussing priorities | Developing a field” is all about visual communication, this established discipline with a burgeoning professional practice, varied educational systems, critical research, national and international conferences and competitions, trade magazines, and academic journals. Across many areas, visual communication is entering a period of sustained growth and expansion. This calls for strategic decisions for directions of development, setting priorities for action, and clarifying relationships with related areas of activity which ICTVC is eager to explore with speakers such as Michael Twyman, Neville Brody, Petr van Blokland, Mary Dyson and Louise McWhinnie to name a few.

The 6th ICTVC is organised by the Institute for the Study of Typography & Visual Communication with the collaboration of the Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art and the Graphic Communication program of the Department of Design & Multimedia, the University of Nicosia.

ISIA Urbino Type Design Week 2016, July
Launched in 2011, the ISIA Urbino Type Design Week is a one-week intense course in typeface design, held at the ISIA, High Institute for Applied Arts in Urbino, Italy. Previous years had seen as guest tutors heavyweights of type industry, such as Bruno Maag, Erik van Blokland, and Fred Smeijers. Smeijers – a reference name in the world of type design – will be, once again, the Type Week’s guest tutor.

The 2016 Type Week sets to further explore the unconventional approach to type design applied in the last two editions, which resulted in a unique experience in learning about type. The practical start and introduction to type design are based on a teaching method developed by Smeijers, in which stencils play a central role. Next to Fred Smeijers, last year’s Type Week saw the participation of Eric Kindel, who complemented the program with several lectures on the history and evolution of stencil type. This year, Eric will join the teaching team - Fred Smeijers, Jonathan Pierini, and Riccardo Olocco - for the entire course duration.

The ISIA Type Design Week will provide two tracks: one – introduction to type design for beginners, and a second track – for participants with a more advanced command of type design, having the chance to work on a personal project with the assistance of the teaching staff. An engaging program comprising practical sessions and lectures will provide the participants with information, skills, and type design techniques, as part of a critical design process.

The ISIA Type Design Week 2016 will start on Monday, July 25, ending on Saturday morning, July 30. The course will takes place on the premises of ISIA, the High Institute for Applied Arts – a spectacular former convent in the heart of the Renaissance town of Urbino, a walled city and a Unesco World Heritage Site in a lush and hilly area in the Marche region of Italy.

TypeCon 2016, August
With renowned graphic designer Lance Wyman as TypeCon’s keynote speaker for 2016 this is going to be a celebrated experience of good design. For the past five decades, Wyman has defined the field of environmental graphics, specializing in identity systems for cities, events, institutions, and transportation - his work for the 1968 Mexico Olympics is widely celebrated as a pinnacle of environmental and branding design. He currently teaches corporate and wayfinding design at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. TypeCon is an annual conference presented by the non-profit Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA), an international organization dedicated to the promotion, study, and support of typography and related arts.

Since the inaugural conference in 1998, TypeCon has explored type for the screen, printing history, Dutch design, type in motion, Arabic calligraphy, the American Arts and Crafts movement, experimental typography, webfonts, and much more. Special events include the Type & Design Education Forum, and an exhibition of international type and design.