Type design

Teacher : Ludivine Loiseau

The course is an introduction to font editing. With a bold approach, he demystifies the role of the typeface designer and places glyphs at the center as the political articulations of our interfaces and layouts.

Each student develops a typographic project that fits into the theme of the year. Each year a new entry is offered, always based on the encounter with a set of characters chosen in context (historical period, artistic movements, uses and practices)

objectives and follow-up

Build the fundamentals of a typeface project, document the research that accompanies it and specify the different dimensions – use, medium, cultural, technical and artistic contexts.

- document and situate the project: define the context and the referents

- make the process legible: choice of tool and drawing steps

- fix a first set of glyphs or lettering kit usable by others (not necessarily in digital format)

- evoke future perspectives: formulate possible uses and ways of dissemination

The follow-up is based on methodological contributions and on the visit of a variety of practices relating to typographic design but also to lettering in the broad sense, bathed in vernacular and copy.

— Visible language magazine, 1967 - 1990

— Footnote magazine, Mathieu Christe https://lapolice.ch/publications

— Writing: collection of studies published from 1937 to 1981, Jean Mallon.

— FFF (Filipino Folk Foundry), Hardworking, Goodlooking, 2017

— History of typographic writing, Jacques André, 2016

— The Natural Enemies of Books: A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography, Occasional Papers, 2020