To become a type designer?

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  • Chris D
    Chris D Posts: 76
    I can relate a lot to Kayley... I am a graphic designer / business owner by day, but I've always been a type nut for as long as I remember and my desire to draw letterforms all day occasionally bubbles to the surface and takes me away from my bread and butter work :D I'm currently trying to pursue it as a casual > part time > full time career, if I am fortunate enough... 

    The difficulty for me is that I get heaps of ideas for different designs but I never really get around to completing them, I'm working on about 6 or 7 different designs right now and it's a little frustrating trying to complete them all at once :) But it'll happen one day, you just have to try and not get disheartened.

    It is really tough trying to find the time and resources to educate yourself in type design, particularly if you live in a part of the world where type design as a profession is non-existent (hearing about all the fantastic type workshops, conferences & museums in Europe & the US makes me fairly envious sometimes ;) But thankfully we have global forums like this to continually ask questions and learn from each other.

    Also I recommend following as many type designers as you can in places like Twitter, I've managed to learnt quite a bit about the business end of type design that way... Here's a personal list I'm forever curating... https://twitter.com/drawcardau/lists/typography-font-design/members (as an aside, this presentation is really worth a read. 

    One book that I keep turning to as a source of inspiration is "Designing Type" by Karen Cheng, which you can order on Amazon. It's a great primer on the basic forms and shapes of letters throughout different styles, and draws a lot of visual comparisons between some of the well known typefaces. 

    Good luck and keep chipping away!

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