New festival Typographics brings together a broad list of speakers, an exciting workshop programme and three-day hackathon, and aims to explore the diverse and multifaceted ways of using type.
Typographics was the word used by type designers Herb Lubalin and Aaron Burns fifty years ago to describe typography at its best: compelling design that evokes moods and memories, or just gets your attention. Adopting this term, new conference Typographics, which runs at The Cooper Union in New York 12-13 June, aims to showcase excellent examples of type and underpin our emotional connection with them, as well as providing fun, type-inspired workshops and events the week before and after the conference itself. “There are conferences on graphic design, and conferences on type design, but Typographics is devoted to typography, the use of type in every medium,” says organiser Roger Black, the co-founder of Font Bureau.
Alongside Black, the festival has been planned by Alexander Tochilovsky and Cara Di Edwardo, the co-founders of Type@Cooper. Tochilovsky is also the curator of the Herb Lubalin Study Center.
Typographics’ speaker line-up is broad in its scope, featuring coders, content analysts and interface designers and well as typography stalwarts Bruno Maag and Jonathan Hoefler, critic Adrian Shaughnessy, author Steven Heller and designers Alex Trochut, Paula Scher and Barbara Glauber. “Speakers will focus on the current trends in typography, as well old ideas that are still relevant today” says Black. “We’re presenting exciting work, breaking theories, and new technology and styles range from the classical to the radical.”
Alongside the conference there are a number of workshops happening at Cooper Union (including sign painting, working with found lettering, and the Python programming language), tours in typographically significant places, and a ten-day happening, called Typographics Lab. The Lab looks to the digital side of type in use and will feature live blogging and video creation, debates, CSS and SASS, hackathons, software workshops, an exhibit, and a print publication.
typographics.com
