Events
Typographic Knitting: Writing with Wool
with Rüdiger Schlömer
Explore basic typeknitting techniques and plan your next holiday knitting project using Knit Grotesk and other custom hand knitting fonts.
- Date
- Time
Over two weekends (Saturday-Sunday, November 18, 19, December 2 & 3), learn to knit a monogram, name tag, instagram meme, poster, scarf, pullover, or blanket during this online typeknitting workshop. Use your skills as a visual plug-in to create tactile lettering and produce objects and clothes, or simply as a typographic meditation. This online workshop consists of 4 sessions over two weekends.
Participants will explore different typefaces like Knit Grotesk, which was developed specifically for hand knitting, and recently released by the Swiss type foundry Nouvelle Noire. We will cover different knitting methods with possible connection points to your personal knitting and graphic design projects.
Knitting exercises will be done using techniques like slip-stitches, mosaic knitting, and illusion knitting. After a basic overview, we will focus on fundamental approaches to modify or construct letters, words, and layouts. We will explore ways to plan and knit single letterforms and repeat patterns in different scales, preparing you to develop patterns of your own.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand the basics of several knitting techniques and their typographic potential
- Knit prototypic letterforms as a basis for individual modification
- Design and knit your own repeat patterns
- Learn helpful workarounds to plan and prototype your own typographic knitting project
Required Knitting Skills
- Casting on, Knit & Purl, Binding off
Required Materials
- Round knitting needles (3.5–4.5 mm)
- Crochet hook
- Wool yarn in 3 colors of strong contrast (e.g. blue/white/orange)
- Graph paper A4 (8.5" x 11") or A3 (11" x 17", tabloid size)
- Text markers in different colors (e.g. yellow/blue)
- Camera, phone or scanner to capture your work
Preparation
- Participants will receive an exercise-PDF and tutorial video links via email two (2) weeks in advance of the workshop
Diversity and Equity Scholarship
Diversity and Equity are important to all of us at Letterform Archive, and we are committed to increasing opportunities for underrepresented groups within the type and design communities.
We are offering one BIPOC/Equity scholarship seat in this workshop.
To apply for this scholarship, please complete and submit to us the short form linked here at least a week prior to the start of the workshop.
Rüdiger Schlömer
Rüdiger Schlömer is a graphic designer, educator, and book author based in Zürich, Switzerland. He studied Visual Communication in Aachen, and Art in Context in Berlin, Germany, and has been working in the field of museum scenography, signage, and books for over 15 years.
With Typographic Knitting, or Typeknitting, he explores the graphic potential of various hand knitting techniques, opening a dialogue between digital typography and the analog craft of knitting. His book Typographic Knitting: From Pixel to Pattern received a Certificate of Typographic Excellence from the Type Directors Club NY, was nominated for the Design Prize Switzerland and appeared in magazines such as Vogue Knitting, The Knitter, and Make. It was translated into English and French.
Over the past years Rüdiger has held several Typeknitting workshops in the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, France and at design schools like Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, Germany and Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest Textile Department, Hungary. He is currently developing a collection of Typeknitting typefaces, with the aim to enable knitters to write with wool.
