Thinking with Type Workshop

Explore the fundamentals of typographic styling and layout while drawing inspiration from spectacular pieces in the Letterform Archive. During the workshop, you will develop a branding system for a fictional product or organization. Building outward from a core typographic mark, you will create a palette of elements and apply your system to diverse content. The end result will be an 8-page “standards manual” inspired by modern masterworks of corporate identity—from NASA and the Finnish railway to Kentucky Fried Chicken. This intensive, hands-on workshop will challenge you to build your skills, from choosing and combining type to crafting a typographic hierarchy and building a grid.

This class is created for designers and students with a grasp of the basics and a desire to flex their typographic muscles. We will be working in Adobe InDesign, so a recent version (CS4 or later) of the application is required. The course builds on Ellen Lupton’s best-selling book Thinking with Type (2010).

A workshop offered by Type@Cooper West, a collaboration between Letterform Archive and The Cooper Union Continuing Education Department, and held in the Monotype Classroom at Letterform Archive.