Type Camp Toronto – Recap

I was fortunate enough to attend last week's Type Camp pointed pen workshop at Design Exchange, hosted by founder Dr. Shelley Greundler & calligrapher-extraordinaire Xandra Zamora. If you remember, Type Camp came to Toronto this past spring. We were so grateful that Shelley decided to set up camp in Toronto a second time.

The workshop started with some friendly introductions and Type Camp's infamous "Name Game", an innovative way to help all attendees break the ice, meet each other and get their brains warmed up. Then, we got right into the workshop with a review of our materials and a demo by Xandra. The mornings exercises focussed around stroke pressure and consistency using a pencil. We worked with a basic italic monoline alphabet, as well as a majuscule Roman exemplar.

Just before lunch, we got started with ink and our new nibs. Xandra gave another demo on how to tackle lower case script characters, using the press-and-release techniques we had just covered with the pencil.

After lunch, we were free to practice a variety of script alphabets at our own pace, with one-on-one help from both Shelley and Xandra. Below is some of my process work from the afternoon.

This pointed pen workshop was a pleasure to attend – I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon than crafting tiny letters. I had no experience with a pointed pen, so it was a privilege to have this dedicated time to learn. Shelley & Xandra's knowledge & advice was invaluable, and the group was very supportive. Don't miss the next Type Camp – watch for the next Toronto workshop in early 2015.

Thanks Shelley & Zandra!