Meeting Nº 19: Blackletter Calligraphy Basics
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UPDATE: February 28 is sold out, but there are new spaces available Sunday, March 1.
Space is limited – sign up today!
Meeting Nº18: Letraset Love Letters
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Space is limited! RSVP today!
Meeting Nº17 recap
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On Tuesday, we braved the cold and gathered at Mill St. Beer Hall to enjoy a beverage, practice our lettering, and discuss the future of Ligatures.
We had a lot of good laughs, and were thoroughly impressed with the scribbles left on our impromptu newsprint canvas. We also had some excellent event ideas put on the table:
● a "Command of Hand" lettering duel! ● a collaborative hand-lettered gift wrap making session ● a type-themed art & craft fair ● more workshops (brush pen, lino printing, screen printing) ● guest speakers
Check out some of the great doodles from the evening. And thanks again to Mill St. for generously offering their space.
Hope to see you at our next event. Watch for details coming Monday!
HoliDIY recap
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Last Wednesday, we gathered at the beautiful Shopify space to celebrate the season and create some typographic, holiday-themed work. Enthusiastic folks brought all of them own DIY tools and supplies, and Beau's Brewing Company brought delicious beer samples. All-in-all, it was a fantastic night, filled with lots of letters and laughs. Plenty of photos below.
Thanks to everyone came out during this busy season and made the event a success.
Happy Holidays from your friends at Ligatures. See you in the new year!
Holiday treat from 'Sign Painters'
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The 'Sign Painters' DVD is now officially available for pre–order! Packed with 30 minutes of bonus material and a beautiful letterpress design by the legendary Bob Behounek, the DVD’s will ship out in January 2015. Get your copy here!
Happy HoliDIY
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Please join us Wednesday, December 17 for our special holiday event. Proud to be partnering with Beau's for the evening's refreshments.
Space is limited - sign up today!
(Event poster lettering & illustration by Davin Risk)
The Swash & Serif Gallery Show Recap
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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.
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.
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
Swash & Serif
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Please join us for the opening reception of the Swash & Serif group typography show! The fun starts tonight at 7:00pm at The Black Cat Gallery (2186 Dundas St. W.)
See you there!
Meeting Nº14: St. James Cemetery type walk recap
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(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!
(Photo: Kostis Petridis)
Type Camp Toronto – Recap
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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!
Happy birthday to us!
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One year ago, Ligatures was born. Thanks to everyone who has made our first year awesome. We can wait to share what we've got planned for year two!
Brush pen workshop at Sid Lee
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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.
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!
St. James Cemetery Type Walk
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RSVP for our special Halloween event here!
Web Type East
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In Montreal and interested in web type? Don't miss Web Type East, happening at Concordia University on Thursday, November 6.
More information on the Type Camp website.
