Letters in Florence
For the record, I’d already decided Florence was my favorite city before I got the life-changing news. But I have to admit, the little medieval city will always have a special place in my heart.
It was our first day there. That morning I woke up with a bad headache and had about four shots of espresso before we left for Roma Termini. Our train arrived in Florence in the late morning. As our group of twenty-four students and two professors made our way through the station, my head was spinning as I attempted to take in the architecture and beautiful lead-cast letters on the walls. After checking in to our hotel and getting lunch (and more espresso), the group met back up to visit Santa Maria Novella. The beautiful basilica’s cloister is known as the Cloister of the Dead, because it was used as a cemetery for many centuries. The tombstones are absolutely gorgeous, and my jaw was gaping open the entire time I was there. By this time I was already convinced that Florence was incredible. Later when we returned to the hotel we planned to meet back up in an hour and a half to eat a group dinner. Like most of the group, I decided to take the time to relax in the hotel; by this time we were halfway through our trip, so we welcomed the chance to rest.
I wasn’t expecting to get an email for two more days, so when I groggily woke up and checked my phone, tapping the email app to make the red number in the corner go away, I wasn’t paying complete attention. I just remember selecting my professional design mailbox and opening an email without reading the subject. I began reading:
Dear Tara, It is my pleasure to invite you to join the 2018 Type@Cooper Condensed Program.
I immediately sat up and began yelling, waking up my roommates. I don’t even think I finished reading the acceptance letter before I sprinted out of the room to find my friend who is just as passionate about typography as I am (apparently I punched her in the ear as I hugged her after telling her the news).
It was a great day, to say the least. It felt poetic to find out I got into a type design program in a city with beautiful typography at every corner, surrounded by my art & design peers.
So at this point some of you may be wondering what Type@Cooper is and why I am so excited about it. Before I explain, let me fill you in on how I got here. I just graduated with a BA in Art with a concentration in Graphic Design at Anderson University, a small private liberal arts university in South Carolina. Typography is integral to design, but type design is a more specific discipline as it involves designing fonts. It can also include custom typography for specific applications, i.e. movie titles, book covers, or hand-painted storefront signs. So while it could be considered a “niche” field, there are still a variety of applications.
I think I loved typography before I even knew I did; one of my high school AP Art projects was a van Gogh quote designed with multiple colors and typefaces. It’s hideous looking back on it, but even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I was attempting to use typography to illustrate the quote and reflect van Gogh’s artistic style.
But typography didn’t just come naturally to me. I loved my college Typography class from the start, but I struggled with my first projects. And although they are certainly not the best work I’ve done, I learned a lot from them and thus enjoyed them.
Our final project in that class was to design a typeface. Not only did we study the anatomy of type, but we had to consider how to develop tone, character, and purpose in letterforms. We learned how to create a typeface that would solve a specific problem. I remember how much I enjoyed carefully drawing and measuring the letterforms, testing different words and sizes, and refining details.
In my later design classes, I continued developing typographic solutions, often wondering if what I was doing was even “okay”. The truth is, typography alone can be just as effective as other visual solutions like illustration or photography; it just took me some time to learn that and to develop my skills.
The summer after junior year I interned as a graphic designer in the marketing department of a telecommunications company. I learned more about myself and the workplace than I did about design, but left with exactly what I needed to bring into senior year. I was more confident in my skills, and I knew for sure that I wanted to work with typography in my career. While I enjoyed my internship overall, I found that I got the most joy out of projects that involved page layout and typesetting, including a specific project that gave me the opportunity to make a couple lockups of type.
By this time, I’d already discovered Type@Cooper, but had shrugged it off as out of my reach. But that summer I made a decision to truly chase after what I want for my career, regardless of how intimidating or impossible it may seem. I talked to my advisor early that fall about my plan, so we knew that my senior year projects would focus on typography in order to create the portfolio I’d need to apply to type design programs and typography-focused design jobs. While I’ve always placed a lot of importance in my work, my goal gave me renewed vigor that semester to develop my projects into the best solutions they could be.
By the end of February, I had designed my portfolio boards, finished my personal branding, and refined my website. After applying to Type@Cooper, I was focused on a number of huge deadlines leading up to Spring Break, when we left for Italy.
Since the trip to Italy was part of a study abroad course, we each needed to complete a project inspired by the trip. I had already decided I’d design a typeface, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do; I’d seen so much beautiful typography, I didn’t know where to begin. After some consideration I chose to design one based on the lead characters in Firenze Santa Maria Novella, the Florence train station. I recently completed the first style, although I’ve started a few more and plan to design a whole family. I’ll likely end up making some changes with what I learn from Type@Cooper.
Now that I’ve caught you up to where I am now, I’ll explain the program. It’s a five-week long post-graduate certificate program held at Cooper Union in partnership with Type Director’s Club. It’s a rigorous, full-time program that includes guest speakers and critics who are well established in the world of typography. Not only will I learn a lot, but I’ll be surrounded by classmates from all over the world who love type as much as I do. There are a total of 16 students, and this year’s group has students from six different countries and six states within the US. I’m really excited to meet them all and learn their stories.
The program begins on June 18, and I’m moving to Manhattan on June 11. It’s crazy how fast time has flown since that night in Florence, but I’m more than ready to jump in. There’s a big typography conference the weekend before classes start, and I’ll be a volunteer and attendee, so I’m excited for all of the opportunities that will come along with that; more about that will follow in my next post!
Whether you’re a friend, stranger, or fellow type nerd, I hope you’ll enjoy reading about my adventures in letter school.