We are proud to sponsor a screening of Linotype: The Film, a feature-length documentary centered around the Linotype type casting machine, right here at Pratt Institute. Called the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by Thomas Edison, the Linotype revolutionized printing and society. The film tells the surprisingly emotional story of the people connected to it and how it impacted the world.

This event is open to all Pratt students and faculty, and to the greater Pratt, TDC, and creative communities.

If you haven't already acquainted yourself with TDC's event calendar in this new year, we're sharing some of the upcoming highlights at TDC for Spring '12.

Feb 16 – Lecture by Abbott Miller from Pentagram,  “Focusing on the role of typography in recent identity, environmental, and editorial projects, Abbott’s presentation looks at how typography and lettering are used to create a sense of place, time, and mood.”

March 1st: lecture by Jean François Porchez (Pentagram) on rebuilding the present with typography showcasing some of his greatest work building the visual language base of different brands through contemporary type design.

The rest of March will also be packed with an exciting Non-Latin Intensive; a week by week intensive series with diverse instructors demystifying Cyrillic as the first in the series;  with Arabic, Hebrew and Greek to follow.

This is a great opportunity to explore multilingual type design in an increasingly connected and diverse global community; one that is growing increasingly expansive with higher expectations in global project development. 

Since the Feb 1st TDC visit to The Grolier Club has been filled, we’d like to remind all members (and frankly anyone reading this!) to seize the opportunity and enjoy the following exhibit: 

“From December 7, 2011 to February 4, 2012, The Grolier Club of New York will devote both its upper and lower galleries to an unprecedented public exhibition on the history of the French national typographic and printing establishment, the Imprimerie Nationale, arguably the most important printing house in Europe. Drawn from the ancient, vast, and comprehensive archives of the Imprimerie Nationale, Printing for Kingdom, Empire, & Republic will document the significant influence of the press, not only on printing and the book arts, but also on French — and therefore European — literary culture from the mid-sixteenth century to the present day. A full program of tours and printing demonstrations are planned for December and January”

-  Excerpt from The Grolier Club Facebook page

Earlier this month on Nov 8, TDC collaborated with TDCPSG for our first ever mentoring meeting, which we hope to carry on from here out at least once per semester. We especially appreciate TDC doing this as an exclusive to TDCPSG members!

The attendance for the night included TDCPSG members, and TDC board members including Sean King, Graham Clifford, Matteo Bologna, Jessica Hische, Brian Miller, Ina Saltz, and Carol Wahler.

The evening started it out with an intimate small table discussions with 3 to 4 students assigned to one board member depending on their interest, and a smaller Q&A that ended up being more comprehensive than we’d even anticipated. So much so that once we progressed to a larger round table Q&A with all the attendees, the discussion was shorter due to the prior mingling’s efficiency in having our members’ questions answered.

This excites us to know that we can expand our next Mentoring Night and include a longer agenda for our final round table in the evening, and even potentially extend it beyond Q&A whilst being ready to expand on the discussion next time. All in all, it was a great first run if you will, and we were happy to hear the generally positive feedback from our attendees, sharing the following as what they considered were the event’s highlights:

“A sense of care and dedication to the profession by the board members. Very inspiring and encouraging.”

“I thought it was great and really fun to get to meet such amazing talents. I would love to do this more often, like once a month!”

“The round table was wonderful. It was extremely helpful and the environment was very comfortable.”

I’d like to end this entry with a special thanks to Rachel Yoo Digerness, our dedicated secretary treasurer for taking the reigns on this event especially; so much so that she deserves a public shout out. We have all enjoyed a great start to what we see this group growing into, and we hope that all our members can look forward to another semester of more great events. 

Author: Lamis Harib, President

Our high hopes for our Fall events were more than exceeded with Jesse Ragan’s successful collaboration with TDCPSG, kicking it off with a Beginning Typeface Design intensive workshop spanning Friday and Saturday, Sept 30th – Oct 1st.

With limited seating and what ended up being as a competitive registration process, we were happy to provide the opportunity to the eligible Grad CommD students – under the kind patronage of the Pratt Grad CommD Department – to experience what Jesse Ragan does best. In fact, he does it so well that he teaches a 10 month course of it, but was met with the challenge of providing the students the creative and technical gist of it in 2 days.

Students were expected to come in with sketches to refine during the workshop, and Jesse compartmentalized the time spent to be as efficient as possible with work focused periods, historic lectures, and referencing his own work in the process. Real live cases were introduced and students’ feedback was largely positive in the workshop outcome. As a typography focused student group, it was a great experience working with someone as incredibly knowledgeable and skilled as Jesse Ragan. We were able to bring a workshop that is the first of it’s kind at the Pratt Manhattan campus, and the results of our students’ brilliant dedication to the workshop can be viewed in the gallery below. (Fontlab is also now available at room 518 on the 5th floor for further exploration by all Pratt Manhattan students.)

Words from our attendees..

“Learning Fontlab isn't easy; however, given the context of the instructor who is passionate about type design I have learned more than I expected. I enjoyed the case studies immensely.” - Elisabetta Di Stefano, TDCPSG Chair

“As someone with no background in typeface design, I enjoyed learning the process of how fonts can be derived from previously printed materials or updated from previous concepts. I also liked seeing the process of a professional type designer and learning how he worked on his own projects.” – Nick McBurney, TDCPSG member

Jesse teaches typeface design at Pratt in Brooklyn and Cooper Union. He also has designed typefaces for House Industries, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, and Font Bureau. (For more on affiliated events with Jesse: check out the lectures and workshops at Cooper Union, please go to http://coopertype.org/lectures/  for lectures and http://coopertype.org/public-workshops/ for workshops.)

Title: David Chang: Reconcile
Location: Pratt GradComD Gallery Pratt Manhattan 144 West 14th St, 7th floor Gallery hours: M-F 10AM-5PM
Link out: Click here
Description: Reconcile, an exhibition of work by David Chang
August 29-November 14, 2011

Opening Reception September 9, 2011 5PM-7PM

Pratt GradComD Gallery
Pratt Manhattan
144 West 14th St, 7th floor
Gallery hours: M-F 10AM-5PM

David Chang:

“As I was preparing for this show, reconciliation has been a recurring theme in my work, my relationships, my faith and even with current events. Given that this show was going to be at a place of learning, a place to discover and pursue a creative passion, I thought it appropriate to investigate the reconciling process young artists face. I selected Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “I Believe in All That Has Never Yet Been Spoken” as my subject. The pieces in this show are different studies of the selected text that culminate into a site-specific installation piece directed by Dominika Michalowska and photography by Martina Scorcucchi.”
Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2011-09-09
End Time: 19:00