teachings / x — @
Small Grammar of Letters
Valentina Alga Casali — Graphic & Type Designer @ Sunday Büro
Category: Workshop
Level of difficulty: easy
Topics:
- lettering
- typography
- graphics
- calligraphy
- writing
Mode: Two days in a row.
Dates:
23/09/20179.30 / 18.30
24/09/20179.30 / 18.30
It will take place at:
Total duration: 16 hours (break not included)
Cost: 165 €
Output: skills
Recommended for
everybody
Min. number of partecipants to start: 12
Max. number of partecipants: 15
Held by:
-
Valentina Alga Casali
Graphic & Type Designer / Sunday Büro
Valentina Alga Casali studied graphic design at the Comics International School, focusing almost immediately on character and alphabetical signs. For five years, she continued to study these issues with independent teachers such as Barbara Calzolari, Michael Sull, Tom Kemp and the Bologna School "Scrivere a Modo", David Kynaston, Sumner Stone, Giuseppe Salerno / Resistance Type Foundry, Claude Marzotto / òbelo, relating to many different realities on national and international level such as CIAC - International Center for Calligraphic Arts, ACI - the Italian Calligraphy Association, ISIA of Urbino, CFP Bauer, Ferrogallic Association, SOS - Open Source School and Better Letters. She's been working in the field of visual communication since 2010, and since 2013 as a freelance professional. She lives and works in Jesi, where she founded the Sunday Büro studio with her husband.
What is it about?
In the current golden age of calligraphy, and more generally of lettering, this workshop wants to:
☛ provide participants with the tools to observe and understand better the visual stimuli they face on a daily basis. To go beyond the adjective "beautiful" – which has no value at a design level – and pay attention to what works and what does not in writing / calligraphy on a formal, rhythmical and compositional level.
☛ activate a reasoned practice to gain confidence in your own capability with the proposed method.
☛ experiment and develop new personal writing models.
☛ improve your writing
N.B: This course is for everyone and no previous knowledge of graphics / calligraphy / typography is required.
What will we work on?
Each one will have, if they deem it necessary, to arrive at a definite designed or written output, according to their abilities, following the proposed method, in one of the three proposed and personalized styles.
How does it work?
The course is structured in 2 days.
Day 1 — On the first day, more general topics about writing and its nature will be discussed, with a participatory mode which brings participants to discuss and embrace the covered concepts. They will deal with two italic styles, American Cursive and Italico, in which one can observe how repeating signs produces a pattern with distinct, but equally legible, formal features.
Day 2 — On the second day participants will face capitals based on the proportions of Roman capitals, then upper-cases and lower-cases done so far will be mixe. Some exercises to try to develop a personal student-debate based system will follow.
CONTENTS
☛ Writing theory: the model of written communication in comparison with the verbal one
☛ Differences between calligraphy, lettering and type design
☛ Visual perception, applicable to both calligraphy and typography in the broad sense. With the help of some small tools, participants will create patterns of signs that will allow them to display three different alphabets, or even to invent new ones
☛ Study of the inner (white) form of letters that helps to draw and write with greater awareness
☛ Study of ductus and letter form
☛ Rhythm Exercises
☛ Basic technical terminology
☛ Optical Adjustments and Scripting (lettering)
☛ Posture and handle
MATERIALS NEEDED
☛ 2 pencils 2B
☛ some colored pencil
☛ rubber
☛ temper
☛ Pilot G-tech-C4 balloon (0.4) / Pilot Slides 0.4
☛ Some sheets of opaque glossy paper (Canson type) or white tissue paper
☛ If you have writing / drawing tools with which you want to experiment, bring them! (Brushes, automatic pen, parallel pen, nibs, pencils, etc.)
All participants will be provided with booklets.
↳ Courses will start once the minimum number of participants is achieved.
By clicking on SUBSCRIBE you’ll get access to a form to be filled in to complete your enrolment request:
If, within the deadline, the maximum number of participants is exceeded: we will select the partecipants, you’ll receive an email with all the informations about the selection and the activity start.
If, within the deadline, the minimum number of participants is reached: you’ll receive an email with the payment details (PayPal or bank transfer). Once you’ve charged it, you’ll receive a receipt confirmation and the details of your course.
This process is designed to assure everyone the utmost transparency and the economic sustainability of the courses.
