Sketching allows us to tap directly into our visual instincts without the unwieldy Bézier curve. It’s a fast and flexible way to generate ideas and plan a typeface before committing to production. 

In this two-day intensive, students will learn efficient sketching techniques alongside core principles of lettering and type design, with a focus on contrast, structure, proportion, spacing, and optical correction. We’ll explore how to define scope early (weight, width, optical size, family planning, etc.) by mapping ideas quickly on paper and pushing them to their limits. By the end of the workshop, students will have a clear sketch-based framework for developing original, functional typeface concepts.

Materials

• Borden & Riley 14" x 17" #37 Boris Marker Layout Bond Paper or Canson equivalent bond paper
• Big chunky black marker (Black Edding 300 Permanent Marker or Sharpier of similar size)
• Medium chunky black marker (Pentel Sign Pen or similar)
• Fine black pen (Black Micron pen or or Sharpie “Pen”)
• Broad-edge (Y&C Calligraphy Marker 5.0mm or Pilot Parallel pen of similar size)
• White-out pen (Bic or Tipp-Ex)
• Scissors

• Ruler