At some point of the bachelor course, graphic design students are exposed to typographic studies. Through theory and practical assessments, they have to deal with topics related to type design, such as consistency, contrast, style and legibility. Having a notion of how to draw letterforms and relate them to each other is an essential knowledge for their formation, even if they do not necessarily wish to work with type design in the future. Some professors created their own approaches to these basic type design principles. For 12 years, the presenter has been conducting an introductory typography module at some bachelor design courses in Brazil. The first task consists in completing by hand some missing letters (or parts of letters) of a basic character set of ITC Franklin Gothic, supplied in an A4 sheet. At the end, the results are discussed along with the students, providing the means to understand the basic rules of typography, and also pushing them to pay attention at details. The presentation will cover the findings after going through this exercise with more than 20 different groups. What are the most common mistakes committed by students? What changed through time? And what can we learn from this?
Lessons from the first type exercise
