Writing

While virtually all graphic design professionals and educators alike profess typography to be the backbone of a graphics education, no design program has integrated the training necessary for its students to appropriately match typefaces to the mood of a document. Convinced that the ability to hear the inner voices of type was key to setting a document’s tone center, I was not only surprised that imparting that capability to students was absence from the curriculum, but even more perplexed that such a vital aspect of graphics education seemed to have so thoroughly escaped the attention of the experts since its omission is tantamount to running a music program without the benefit of ear training, a likely factor for the general typographic tone-deafness of virtually all graphic trainees. Disconcerting as that was, the above mentioned educational deficiency afforded me the unique opportunity to attune our students with the type of training that has hither to been unavailable elsewhere.