New: Origin of Type Frameworks (OTF) Course

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

This course offers an online practical and theoretical study of type design and font technology, taught by Dr. Frank E. Blokland and Dr. Jürgen Willrodt. Together they have over 80 years of experience in the type industry.

During the online OTF Course, delivered via Zoom, letter aficionados will delve deeper into what type design and font production actually entails, by evaluating and questioning how to approach the subject theoretically and practically, also from less common points of view. This is done by exploring and analyzing the historical, aesthetic, and technical aspects of type design and typography. The aim is a deep understanding of what exactly this comprises and a quantifiable translation of this knowledge into practical applications.

An important role is reserved for Frank’s dissertation. In On the Origin of Patterning in Movable Latin Type: Renaissance Standardisation, Systematisation, and Unitisation of Textura and Roman Type he argues that Renaissance typographic patterns were partly determined by requirements for the early font production. Hence, today’s typographic conventions are not only the result of optical preferences predating movable type, but at least as much the result of standardization that eased the Renaissance font production.

In short, the OTF Course covers all the usual ingredients of type-design education, such as drawing, spacing, kerning, font formats, (automation of) font production, etc. However, on top of that, there is also a unique and advanced approach, based on almost 40 years of experience in vocational type-design education combined with academic research.

About the teachers: Jürgen (Hamburg, 1952) studied physics and mathematics and obtained a PhD in theoretical particle physics in 1976. As a software engineer, he became the lead developer of the IKARUS system since the early 1980s and developed interpolation, autotracing, and hinting algorithms, as well as special algorithms for Kanji separation. Frank (Leiden, 1959) is a type designer and has been (senior) lecturer in type design at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) since 1987. From 1995 to 2025 he was senior lecturer and Research Fellow at the Plantin Institute of Typography in Antwerp. Frank founded the Dutch Type Library in 1990 and in October 2016 he successfully defended his PhD dissertation on Renaissance font-production standardization at Leiden University.

More information about the OTF Course can be found here.