Typographic Testing Grounds: Job Printing, Small-scale Web Projects, and Innovative Typeface Design
with
Nick Sherman
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, ephemeral printing and publication design fueled a profusion of new typographic styles and technologies. Similarly, the early days of the web fostered a weird and wild diversity of design techniques.
More recently, as communication is increasingly channeled through centralized services and template-driven systems, many areas of the visual landscape have flattened. However, with an abundance of new type platforms and technologies from just the past few years, the potential for typographic innovation and experimentation is greater now than ever.
In this talk, Nick Sherman will discuss the long, complementary relationship between small-scale design projects, technological advances, and inventive typography. Focusing on recent developments in responsive design and variable fonts, he’ll make a case for designers to explore new opportunities on the web while embracing ephemeral publishing ideas from the past.
The Herb Lubalin Lectures are recorded and made available here and on Vimeo with the generous support of Adobe.
About Nick Sherman
Nick Sherman is a typographer, web designer, typeface designer, and typographic consultant. He runs HEX Projects, a company that makes fonts and websites, and is a founder and designer of Fonts In Use and v-fonts.com.
A graduate of the Type@Cooper Extended Program in typeface design at The Cooper Union, Nick is also creative director and web designer/developer for their Typographics design festival. He is a member of the Future Fonts platform and has served on the board of directors for the Type Directors Club, the Adobe Typography Customer Advisory Board, and the artistic board for the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. A List Apart has published his writing on responsive design and web typography, and he occasionally talks and teaches classes on those topics.
Previously, Nick has worked at Font Bureau, Webtype, and MyFonts, directing web design and promotional material for digital typefaces. He graduated with honors from the Graphic Design program at MassArt in Boston, where he has also taught undergraduate typography, typeface design, and letterpress printing. Originally from Cape Cod and Boston, he is also a skateboarder, pizza enthusiast, printer, musician, and classic horror film buff.