Thanks Linotype

Well my year at Linotype went fast, and it was a great experience. It was enlightening to see how this large company handles their extensive library and their many daily customers. My education from Reading did not adequately prepare me for this sort of work in the ‘real word.’ Or I should say, it didn’t prepare me to expect the ‘real world’ to be the way that it now appears. Overall, the year turned out to be a wonderful learning experience which afforded me many compelling projects.

The first week broke me in by writing an article for the TCD’s newsletter LetterSpace. I went on to help organize the Schrift in Form exhibition at the Klingspor Museum. I attended the conferences Typo Berlin and TypeCon – where Atilla Korap and I gave a workshop on type design from start to finish in 8 grueling hours. Sporadic small research projects throughout the year allowed me to troll through the library of type books and the archive of old drawings and materials. And then because of my work and research with the Devanagari script, I was asked to consult on several Indic and non-Latin type projects throughout the year.

These are of course only some of the many highlights when looking back at the time. The great majority of hours were spent working with two other primary tasks. My main duty was to add, check, and correct the database entries for the tens of thousands of fonts in the library – all to make sure they display correctly on the website. Then there were also the general marketing activities – typically involving writing or translating sales text. Being the Marketing departments only native English speaker, most texts went though me at some point, but not always…

Aside from the few small type design projects I worked on there, there is not much internal design happening. There is Akira Kobayashi as you may know, but aside from him there are no other internal designers. This unfortunate fact helped to make the decision to leave Linotype at the end of my contract much easier – rather than possibly continuing there in another role.

I have been infatuated with type design since 2003. I began by drawing and sculpting letters, then moved on to Reading, then to Linotype, now I finally have the opportunity to work on type design full time. Currently, my days are split between my own projects and freelance design jobs. This a truly great situation – living in Frankfurt and doing the design work I have been wanting to do for so long.

So, thank you again to Linotype for the educational year, great experiences, and helping to make this new opportunity possible!

Stay in touch everyone!