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A type revival story: lessons from Type West

Emma Linh
UX Collective
Published in
8 min readApr 24, 2020
Vector forms of g, R, and 2 are large in pink on a blue background. Scans of glyphs g, 2, M, Q, and a are sprinkled across.

LLast Fall, I began the Type West program at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. For those of you who don’t know, the Letterform Archive is creative heaven — a type nerd’s letter art collection turned graphic design museum.

I had been considering applying to this type design program for a while. Despite having practiced design and lettering for several years, I still felt like my work was missing a level of finesse, specifically in the realm of typography. I wanted to command type beyond placing them in layout, in ways that were unique, exciting, experimental.

I don’t see myself making fonts for a living, but Type West seemed like a program that would uplevel my graphic design skills. Every time I visit the Archive, I leave completely over-inspired from seeing art history classics like illuminated manuscripts and psychedelic posters, to new discoveries (for me) like Letraset and Mid-Century brand manuals. Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and applied. Shortly after getting admitted into the program, I was given the first major assignment: revive a typeface.

A case of metal casted font.
Metal-casted type. Photo by Kristian Strand on Unsplash.

A very brief history of type design. Digital type, or “fonts” as most of us know it…

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Emma Linh

Branding & Design — Portfolio: emmalinh.com — Blog: thedesignloupe.com — Social: @emmalinhstark

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