The Swash & Serif Gallery Show Recap

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2014-11-16-balloon Swash & Serif was the first typography-focused art show hosted by Ligatures and the Toronto Design Directory. The show opened with great anticipation on November 13th at The Black Cat gallery on Dundas West and ran until November 19th.

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If you'd like to see more pictures of the event, please check out the great shots by BongoPix & Black Cat Gallery, as well as this great coverage by Torontoist.

The show was comprised of 40 pieces by 36 artists. We were delighted with the quality of the work that poured in from the creative community. It was difficult to curate the final selections – there was only so much space! It was a pleasure to see so many different mediums which made for an eclectic arrangement of typographic eye candy.

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The full collection archive can be found on the Swash & Serif website.  It will also be the first place to find out when we'll be accepting submissions for next show, slated for fall 2015.

The Swash & Serif team would like to extend a thank you to Paul Dotey and Rob Shostak for helping set up the night before the opening reception. Thank you to Black Cat Gallery and Andrew Williamson for all of his help leading up to opening night. Thanks to the public for spreading the word about the show and supporting the artists show during the show's run. But the biggest thank you goes to the 36 artists that submitted their work

Go check them out now!

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Meeting Nº14: St. James Cemetery type walk recap

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1 (Photo: Kostis Petridis)

In honour of Halloween, we convened at St. James cemetery last Wednesday to explore the typographic inscriptions around the graveyard. There were so many beautiful specimens, dating as far back as 1844. Please enjoy these spooky photos!

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(Photo: Kostis Petridis)

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Type Camp Toronto – Recap

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IMG_4656 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Brush pen workshop at Sid Lee

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IMG_9589 Ligatures was recently invited to teach a 4-week brush pen workshop to the creative team at the award-winning agency Sid Lee. Over the four 3-hour sessions, instructors Kyle Gallant and Christopher Rouleau reviewed foundational brush pen techniques, the construction of letterforms, the basics of lettering composition, and the fundamentals of polishing and digitizing finished work. All participants at Sid Lee's Toronto office were supplies with paper, pens, ink & brushes to explore the exciting world of brush lettering.

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Special thanks to Sarah and the entire Sid Lee Toronto team for their enthusiasm and hospitality, and for the lovely hand-lettered thank you card (above).

Do you want to bring Ligatures brush pen workshops to your agency or organization? Please get in touch!

Meeting Nº12: Ligatures Lectures - Lettering and the Movie Poster

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Screen Shot 2014-09-25 at 9.09.37 AM What a night!

It's with great pleasure to announce the success of our first ever Ligature Lecture. In the spirit of the film festival that took over Toronto in September, our first lecture focussed the relationship between lettering and the movie poster. Beginning in the early 1920's, Leslie's lecture spanned the decades looking into the characteristics of type and how it evolved with the movie poster itself.

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We were lucky enough, thanks to Veronica Wong, to host the event at Shopify at its downtown office. If you haven't met this talented lady yet, check her out on Instagram (SUPERVEE). Can't get enough of her amazing lettering! The wonderful space allowed for much interaction during the presentation as well as a a show-and-tell that followed the presentation.

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This was a great opportunity for Leslie to combine both of her passions: film and type. Although there are plenty of resources when it comes to the evolution of the movie poster throughout the years, it's the relationship with type that grabbed her attention. Throughout all the research that went into this lecture, it was the fun and interesting factoids that would come about. For instance, the original Metropolis poster, which only has 4 known original copies left, went to auction and sold for over $1 million? Wild!

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There were many new faces that showed up for the presentation, which was fantastic. It was great to meet each and every one of you! It was lovely to see different groups break off and share some of the work that had been brought. As we move forward with Ligatures Lectures, it would be lovely for anyone interested in presenting a particular topic to contact Chris, Kyle, Margot, or myself. As we're such an eclectic group, it would be a great opportunity to share your knowledge with the rest of the group. We'd be happy to work with you for our second lecture.

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Again, a big thank-you to Veronica and Shopify for hosting our very first lecture Looking forward to seeing everyone later this month for our type walk!

Photo credits: Christopher Rouleau

Meeting Nº13: Don Black Linecasting road trip recap

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IMG_4132 On September 19 & 26, Ligatures, along with the help of Tanya at Snap + Tumble Letterpress, organized 2 road trips to Don Black Linecasting in Scarborough.

Through the course of the visit, we were able to see dozen of amazing letterpress machines – some dating back to the turn of the 20th century – as well as cases and cases of type. We got to cast our names in lead (pictured above) and see these small letterforms printed on a proofing press (last photo).

Thanks again to Albert for offering such an informative tour, and to Don Black himself for the amazing historical anecdotes and the demo of the Intertype machine.

Please get in touch if you'd like to see more excursions like this in the future!

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Photos by Christopher Rouleau unless otherwise stated.

Swash & Serif - Call for Submissions

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Swash & Serif - Call for Submissions  

We're so excited to announce our first art show! In conjunction with the Toronto Design Directory, we've created Swash & Serif: A Group Typography Show. It will be held at The Black Cat on Dundas West, opening November 13.

We're looking for submissions now and we want to see all kinds of typography work, from print to 3D and installation and even motion and animation or video. We've seen the talent you guys have and now is your chance to show it off! The deadline for submissions is November 1st, and you can learn more about the show (and get the submission form) at swashandserif.ca.

Meeting Nº12: Ligatures Lectures Presents - Lettering and the Movie Poster

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Lettering and the movie poster

We're one week away from our very first Ligatures Lecture on Lettering and the Movie Poster.  We’ll be discussing the evolution of type throughout the decades along with beautiful examples of poster design. This will be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate both lettering and the film poster.

The lecture (as well as a show-and-tell) will be taking place on Wednesday, September 24th, from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm at Shopify (80 Spadina Avenue, 4th Floor). Feel free to bring along your own work for a show-and-tell following the short presentation.

We're half full so if you're looking to RSVP, head to ligatures.ca to sign-up!

We look forward to seeing everyone!