Questions for Font Creators Part 1: What Made You Interested in Typeface Design? 1

The question “What made you interested in typeface design?” was asked to staff at the Type Project.

This article introduces comments on the most frequent answers among typeface designers about class during their days as students.

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I had typography class in my freshman year at university. I had an interest in “creating something that many people use everyday” since I was in elementary school. There was a period when I wanted to create products. That connected to typeface design when I took my freshman year typography class.

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I took interest in typeface design because it was interesting to copy from the blackboard into my notebook, and I enjoyed kanji dictation and my college type-printing workshop. During the type-printing workshop, I talked to the professor, and I found out more about typeface designer work.

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In university, I was always potentially interested, but it became clearer the more I studied in class.

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A lecture by Mr. Masahiko Kozuka triggered my interest in typeface design. The block style of Ouyang Xun on screen in a close-up made a strong impression on me.

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A university course triggered my interest in work related to typeface design. I used to do lettering on the cover of my notebooks and copy book and CD title logos even from when I was in junior high school and high school. Through my university typography class, I learned that lettering and logo design are different in genre from typeface design, and typefaces normally used with computers and phones are created character by character by designers.

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Because most of the designers are graduates of art universities, many of them seem to have been influenced by classes related to typography. By looking at the answers, however, I see the importance of “opportunities to know and learn.”

There are many chances for us to see and use typefaces in our everyday lives, but there are not many chances to learn about the process of creating them, or see creators in public. I hope that there will be an increase in classes and lectures on typeface design that may trigger more people to get interested, as described in the answers I received in this article.

It would also be my pleasure if this staff blog becomes one such trigger for our readers.

(XYZ)