Type Trip 2016

Last summer, I wrote about presenting alongside Lost Type during our field trip to Chicago, and attending TypeCon in Denver. This year, I extended (sorry) the scope of my typography-related travels, and will begin attending the Type@Paris program on Monday.

In May, I left Vancouver for Warsaw, Poland, to present at Front-Trends 2016. Developers know more about typography than they think, directly through their familiarity with syntax highlighting conventions in code, and I got the opportunity to share that through my presentation there. I also showed my open source Utility OpenType project, which mitigates CSS issues when using advanced typography features on the web.

I was very excited to get invited to Front-Trends, having been interested in the event for quite some time. I was doubly excited when I remembered the Neon Muzeum is in Warsaw, which has the largest collections of neon sign in Europe, which I was able to explore:

One of many pieces in the truly amazing collection of signs at the Neon Muzeum in Warsaw.

Rather than return to Vancouver after the conference, I have been spending time in England and Scotland. Along the way, I’ve been documenting inscriptions in cathedrals, design history in museums, and taking many photos of sign systems, past and present.

Stonewear ginger beer bottles.

I’ve also been lucky enough to unexpectedly meet up with a number of friends who are also designers and front-end developers, and have had many interesting questions and conversations about using type.

I’m expecting all of this to feed into the next part of my trip: today I left London for Paris, where I will be attending the Type@Paris type design program!

Attendees leave the program having designed a typeface within the time constraints of the program, which they can then go onto refine. At least one of last year’s have already gone onto release theirs—see Buffon, by my fellow Lost Type contributor Dave Coleman.

I’m really looking forward to this opportunity to totally focus on type design, learn from a new set of extremely qualified mentors, and—admittedly—to use the structure of the program to be forced to finish a new project.

I’ll be documenting my progress thoroughly, with intermittent stories about how deeply I regret not trying harder to learn French when I had the opportunity. There might also be post cards or some other kind of give-away in it for you, depending on what I make. I don’t know yet. You will read about that part if you fill out you email below:

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