In college, design schooling outlines the basic requirements for career preparedness, and instructors try to give as much real-world training as they can in such a short amount of time. Not everything you need to know in preparation for your design career can be taught in four years, and instructors know that not every concept can be realized or practiced.<\/p>\n
We asked design educators from some of the top design programs in the nation to share the number one fundamental area of typography that their students have a hard time grasping. Think of these answers as recommendations on typography areas to brush up on to help excel past your peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cType learners only get into technical (historical, analog, digital) and aesthetic detail when they see how they need to be invested in the craft as part of learning and eventually working as typographers, in addition to being visual artists; not illustrators, Photoshoppers, game designers or other fields or technology they might first be exposed to as young artists and designers in high school, community college, or foundation classes.\u201d
\n\u2014 Joseph Coates, Lecturer at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)<\/p>\n
\u201cNegative space and relatedly, scale.\u201d
\n\u2014 Margaret Urban, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the State University of New York at Fredonia<\/p>\n
\u201cThe proportion of type size to page and everything in between: margins to column widths to type size to leading. They keep looking at the type itself, not at the type and how it’s connected to the page holistically. Everything’s connected proportionally.\u201d
\n\u2014 Michael Stinson, Adjunct Faculty at Laguna College of Art + Design (LCAD)<\/p>\n
\u201cThat type has a specific voice that comes along with it. I try to get my students to actually find photos of people that match type.\u201d
\n\u2014 Andrew Hochradel, Design & Photography Educator, California Baptist University, Riverside<\/p>\n
\u201cChoosing an appropriate typeface for a project.\u201d
\n\u2014Victoria Pickett, Lecturer of Visual Communication, Northern Arizona University<\/p>\n
\u201cI think most students fail to understand that they do not have to use the default settings that come in a font. Type is scalable and the type designer optimized the internal metrics of a font for a particular size. Once a student starts changing the size and setting, adjustments to the letter space and word space must be made, and that is where they generally go wrong. I would also add that I think there is too much emphasis on \u2018experimental\u2019 or \u2018conceptual\u2019 typography in design schools. Most students cannot set a proper paragraph justified, rag right, rag left or centered. And most still cannot find the correct quote marks. But it shouldn’t surprise me, most working designers cannot do it either.\u201d
\n\u2013 James Montalbano, Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design<\/p>\n
\u201cThat perception trumps mathematics. It\u2019s developing a typographic sensitivity to know when to break the mathematical system in order to perceptually adhere to it. Like how an \u2018O\u2019 overhangs the baseline so it isn’t perceived as floating.\u201d
\n\u2014 Ben Hannam, Associate Professor at Elon University<\/p>\n
\u201cAll type needs to be adjusted once typed. Auto leading and kerning is not acceptable. Also stretching type and not \u201cknowing\u201d about the fonts they choose. For example, I say, \u201cwhy did you choose Impact as the type for this project?\u201d and they say \u2018how did you know I used Impact?\u2019 and \u2018I don’t know, I like it.\u2019\u201d
\n\u2014 George Garrastegui Jr., Design Educator at New York City College of Technology<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you ever had a client say they gave proofed copy to a designer and it came back with formatting errors? Students are not catching the basics. I tell my design students they should be known for caring about accuracy and quality. They don’t understand that typography is about communication and when they don’t run spell checks or understand the basics of grammar, they are doing themselves and their clients a disservice.\u201d
\n\u2014 Rachelle Woo Chuang, Graphic Design Educator, Chapman University, Orange<\/p>\n
\u201cRestraint.\u201d
\n\u2014 Nikki Juen, Design Faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and Vermont College of Fine Arts<\/p>\n
Are you an educator who feels your students could improve their typography in a certain area? Let us know what they have a hard time grasping by tweeting at @TypeEd<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Rachel Elnar is the producer and co-founder at <\/span>TypeEd<\/a>, where she helps bring the craft of typography back to design education. Get more type in your inbox and <\/span>sign up<\/a> for more about TypeEd columns (and other announcements).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Design educators share the number one fundamental area of typography that their students have a hard time grasping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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