1. Two days before we start, this is the state of the plan for the week ahead. There’s a couple more things to go on, and the interminable problem of making headings meaningful. Especially in the first half of the week (when we throw an awful lot of stuff in front of people and say “look at it, feel it, smell it, imagine yourself the maker and the audience for this!”) we think of sessions as starting points: to tell facts, then to weave stories of how people rise to the challenges in front of them, on to discussions where deeper understanding may emerge alongside knowledge. There is a theme in the week: that typeface design and typography are mirrors for how people think. The people whose work we contemplate may be typemakers, or typesetters, or typesellers; and often type may be the last thing on their mind (they usually are text-makers, and text-setters, and text-sellers, above all) but always the imperative is local, in time, place, and market. Directly, type- and text-people are always problem-solvers, which is easy for designers to perceive. But – always, and often not consciously – these type-people are commentators, discreet cultural activists, even, sometimes, agitators. And that’s where the fun begins, where typography and typeface design come alive. 

    Two days before we start, this is the state of the plan for the week ahead. There’s a couple more things to go on, and the interminable problem of making headings meaningful. Especially in the first half of the week (when we throw an awful lot of stuff in front of people and say “look at it, feel it, smell it, imagine yourself the maker and the audience for this!”) we think of sessions as starting points: to tell facts, then to weave stories of how people rise to the challenges in front of them, on to discussions where deeper understanding may emerge alongside knowledge.

    There is a theme in the week: that typeface design and typography are mirrors for how people think. The people whose work we contemplate may be typemakers, or typesetters, or typesellers; and often type may be the last thing on their mind (they usually are text-makers, and text-setters, and text-sellers, above all) but always the imperative is local, in time, place, and market. Directly, type- and text-people are always problem-solvers, which is easy for designers to perceive. But – always, and often not consciously – these type-people are commentators, discreet cultural activists, even, sometimes, agitators.

    And that’s where the fun begins, where typography and typeface design come alive.