I caution against communication because once language exists only to convey information, it is dying.
— Richard Hugo

To glibly toss off any line of type is to be cynical about the designer’s role in the manufacture of meaning.
— Denise Gonzales Crisp

It’s telling how telling a telling can be.
— David Greenspan

In this studio course, we will explore typography through quick exercises, demos, discussions, and longer term projects, with the two-fold goal of uncovering and understanding our specific approach to visualizing language as designers (aka “our type”) across media, as well as investigating how this approach is informed by, works with, or pushes against typographic standards of clarity and efficiency.

We will take cues from performance and theater to be present, improvise, and find what’s particular to us that informs our making. Concurently, we will look into how our individual points of view interact with the world around us. Guests and lectures will exemplify practices of being part of our work while navigating expectations of “proper typesetting”.

We will look at how our perception of type changes through time and is influenced by culture and technology. We will recognize widely adopted typographic principles, considering their historical context, while challenging the idea of “good typography” all at once. Most of our output will be in print but screen-based experiments are encouraged. We will work towards type that is idiosyncratically ours, whether that's legible or illegible, readable or unreadable, to find out what makes it so and how it plays with others. If designers speak through typography, what are we talking about?

Virginia Commonwealth University
Department of Graphic Design, School of the Arts
Thursday 9am–1:45pm, Pollak 313
Luiza Dale (she/her) oliveiramal@vcu.edu
Office hours: Wednesday 9–11am (Pollak 308) or by appointment

VCU GDES
Thu 9am–1:45pm
Pollak 313
Luiza Dale (she/her)
oliveiramal@vcu.edu