Typo 2012 speaker research

Saturday 20th October 2012

3pm

It was a choice between Gerry Leondis This is the New Typography (and the Typefaces that Make it Work) or Kirsty Carter & Emma Thomas (A Practice For Everyday Life) Translating Personal to Public.  As I am exploring digital and also Typeface choice for digital I thought I may get more out of the Typography talk

Any how Gerry's talk was definitely relevant and has certainly whet my appetite to research typeface further.

Gerry Leondis

What Typo say:

Gerry Leonidas started working in 1986, spanning the transition that desktop computers brought to the design and print industry, while gathering qualifications of mostly peripheral relevance. In 1994 he found a home in the Department of Typography at the University of Reading, where he teaches typography and typeface design, and is heavily involved in knowledge transfer projects. Since 2001 he has been running the MA Typeface Design programme. He has been contributing to Greek typeface design projects for over fifteen years, working with most of the designers and foundries that matter. His perspective is one of placing typography in a wider context, and helping develop in designers an understanding of the basic principles, and an insight into the potential for originality. He is frequently invited to speak, teach, and review the work of others. Gerry will take the subject “social” down to the letter.

http://leonidas.org/

http://typefacedesign.tumblr.com/

His talk slides are linked here:

Gerry will tell a story about typography, and typefaces. In this story, Typography is growing up, entering its sixth era. It is growing as a space shared by many disciplines, gathering readers who see – often for the first time – type, and spatial arrangement, and interaction as decisions that somebody made. In this story we see fundamental assumptions questioned, some thrown out with a “why on earth did we do it like this?”, and others kept with a forced admission that the old guys did get some things right after all. The best part of the story is the bit where typefaces become the looking glass through which all this comes together. There’s no baddie in this story.

Key learning points/quotes: