STPS 601 A Is for Everything - How Typography Shapes Our Language and Culture

3 credits 42.0 hours
600 level graduate course

Using type specimens, printed ephemera, and design examples from the Library of Congress digital collections, participants will trace histories, narratives, and connections in parallel with our diverse cultural experiences and visual language. We regularly interact with typefaces and designs that were forged thousands of years ago. Over 500 years ago, Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of movable type created an explosion of shared knowledge, history, and visual language that continues to evolve in contemporary culture. This course will explore meaning and subject matter through type design. Collaborative exercises will encourage participants to think critically and openly about how type and design shapes our language and visual culture. Site visits include collections in the Philadelphia region, with guest lectures and an artist studio visit. Content is appropriate to a range of subject areas, from art and design, to history, science and technology.

Open to graduate students from the Division of Continuing Studies.
This course may be repeated for credit.