Practica Program 2022 ↗

Topics:

• Evaluating typefaces using objective and subjective standards.
• Discovering how function and use impact design decisions.
• Understanding the type design palette.
• Structuring multiweight families.
• Creating new weights or styles through interpolation.
• Developing a more efficient type design process.
• Expanding character sets and designing diacritics.
• Keeping yourself motivated throughout development.
• Gaining control over your glyphs’ Bézier curves and cleaning up your font files.

What’s included:

• Live classes held over Zoom
• Weekly sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Lectures, feedback sessions, Q&A sessions, and one student-organized session
• Opportunity for lively discussion with visiting professionals
• Ability to watch lectures again (live lectures are recorded)
• Individual feedback on your typeface
• Access to our private Discord community
• Support from lead instructors outside of class
• Participants receive an extended trial license and can purchase their own full license at a discount.

Classes are held twice a week. Tuesdays will be primarily group or one-on-one feedback sessions with a few hands-on workshops in the beginning. Lectures will be held on Thursdays along with three open sessions — two Q&A and one student-organized class.

The Q&A session is a flexible class for students to ask questions or for instructors to give short presentations on topics of interest to students but not covered elsewhere. In the previous editions, we discussed font export tools and strategies, variable fonts, licensing and starting your own foundry, structuring client-driven projects, coding OpenType features, working with reference material and old specimens, and more.

The final Thursday session will be organized by the students with support from the lead instructors. As a group, students will decide the topic for that class and arrange speakers (the last edition chose to have a visiting lecturer discuss italics). A budget will be provided to pay any speaker(s) if needed.

All sessions are held live via Zoom. For those unable to attend in real time, lectures will be recorded. The feedback sessions, on the other hand, must be attended live in order to benefit fully from them. This gives you some flexibility to work the program into your own schedule, but also the opportunity to connect with fellow students.

Lastly, lead instructors will be available to meet with students outside of class for those needing one-on-one support. There are more than fifty-five course hours for the entire program, not including office hours.