This website presents student work from introductory elective courses in typeface design at Yale School of Art: 743 Letterform Design (2020–Spring 2025) and 2743 Introduction to Typeface Design (starting Fall 2025).

Over the course of one semester, meeting for consultations once a week, students develop typefaces more or less closely based on historical reference material. Students are asked to define functional goals for their projects, which their results will be measured against. Source material is treated as a guideline, an example to learn from, not a constraint. Using the type-design software RoboFont, the objective is to build a usable font as a consistent system of shapes and spaces, based on an understanding of the aesthetic demands of individual letterforms as well as the interrelations between them.

Designing typefaces means building systems of recombinable letterforms. It is therefore distinct from other letter-making disciplines in that it necessarily calls for a systematic approach. Studying existing roman text and display type designs while building our own, we investigate aesthetic issues presented by individual letters and their interrelationships; principles of letterform rendering and spacing, systematization of shapes, optical mechanics, cultural signals, and the “translation” process between available sources and digital interpretations.

Instructors

2743 Introduction to Typeface Design (2025–), main instructor: Nina Stössinger
743 Letterform Design, fall semester: Tobias Frere-Jones; additional critiques by Matthew Carter
743 Letterform Design, spring semester: Nina Stössinger; additional critiques by Matthew Carter