Plymouth college of Art Graphic Design students were treated to a two day workshop with font studio, Dalton Maag.
The font makers are known for their work with handmade cosmetics company Lush, as well as working with international companies such as Intel, Red Peak and Burberry.
With more than 35 students attending the workshop, Damien Collot and Eleni Beveratou from Dalton Maag discussed custom fonts, font modifications and logo refinements.
They let the students in on the font creation process, “we draw,
discuss, design, check, engineer and hint” and tasked them with
configuring their own font by taking the first 2 letters of their first
name and surname and creating a brand logo out of them using typeface.
James Usill, third year BA (Hons) Graphic Design student said, “I find design theory fascinating and having Dalton Maag visit is great as its always been something that I wanted to hear about from an industry angle.
“I like the technical aspect of it all and the design rules, font design is something that strongly adheres to that.
“The Q&A session was also good as it meant I could ask more direct questions and its great to get ideas and advice from professionals in design.
“They discussed their various processes for different projects and I found it interesting how each project can be on completely opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of timescale.”
Dalton Maag spoke to students about the design of the Lush font and the importance of researching your client.
With Lush they modernised their branding but kept the handwritten style Lush is known for. Before this digitised font Lush used to hand write labels and then scan and print them.
They have also worked with Red Peak, a design agency in New York, to redesign Intel’s font. Intel wanted a font that worked on screen and that wouldn't look dated for at least 15 years.
Damien explained how sometimes clients don’t realise the importance of the font, but after their work for Intel a video was made to demonstrate the new font and the effect it is having on the company.
Second year student Megan Rouncefield said: “Damien and Eleni talked about the different languages they had to create fonts in and it really enlightened me on what is involved in typeface design.
“It was interesting to hear that they have native speakers on each project to make sure everything makes sense.
“And the fact they sometimes just edit their own fonts rather than creating a new one for each project was a great approach to hear about.”
Photographs taken by BA (Hons) Graphic Design student Allie Couch.
James Usill, third year BA (Hons) Graphic Design student said, “I find design theory fascinating and having Dalton Maag visit is great as its always been something that I wanted to hear about from an industry angle.
“I like the technical aspect of it all and the design rules, font design is something that strongly adheres to that.
“The Q&A session was also good as it meant I could ask more direct questions and its great to get ideas and advice from professionals in design.
“They discussed their various processes for different projects and I found it interesting how each project can be on completely opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of timescale.”
Dalton Maag spoke to students about the design of the Lush font and the importance of researching your client.
With Lush they modernised their branding but kept the handwritten style Lush is known for. Before this digitised font Lush used to hand write labels and then scan and print them.
They have also worked with Red Peak, a design agency in New York, to redesign Intel’s font. Intel wanted a font that worked on screen and that wouldn't look dated for at least 15 years.
Damien explained how sometimes clients don’t realise the importance of the font, but after their work for Intel a video was made to demonstrate the new font and the effect it is having on the company.
Second year student Megan Rouncefield said: “Damien and Eleni talked about the different languages they had to create fonts in and it really enlightened me on what is involved in typeface design.
“It was interesting to hear that they have native speakers on each project to make sure everything makes sense.
“And the fact they sometimes just edit their own fonts rather than creating a new one for each project was a great approach to hear about.”
Photographs taken by BA (Hons) Graphic Design student Allie Couch.
