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Monday 12 February 2018

The First Years Do Hardcore Typography!


Regular exercise is important when working on a computer...

It's that time of year when The University of Cumbria's very own Typographer Royal, H.R.H. Rhiannon Robinson, spends a lot of quality time with our first year students.

Rhiannon was crowned Typographer Royal by our very own queen, H.R.H Elizabeth II, in an elaborate ceremony, held in Typographers Hall (City of London) in June 1990. The position ofTypographer Royal is not to be underestimated and Rhiannon takes her official duties very seriously.Her role behooves her to undertake the following:

  1. Banish poor letter spacing, leading and tracking from all four corners of the kingdom
  2. Seek out and destroy all 'widows' and 'orphans' in documents near and far
  3. Challenge all developers of Microsoft Word Art to single, mortal combat
  4. Round-up, imprison in Newgate and finally hang by the neck until dead, all look-alike, generic fonts and that evil malefactor, known to the wider population as 'Comic Sans'
  5. Teach kick-arse typography skills to students of The University of Cumbria
As always in the Grillust Studio the designs are first developed on paper before moving to screen.
 Kiana's 'thumbnail visuals' pictured today...
Here's Dani (21) moving her visuals to screen


An aerial view of the studio showing H.R.H The Typographer Royal™ dispensing words of wisdom to an attentive BT (21), nearby Marc (also 21) works on screen while Hannah (also, also 21) tries to draw Timmy, our very own 'Typographic Tortoise'!
Key: A. Tumbnail Visuals, B. Braeburn Apples (as eaten by all top typographers).


"Hang on a mo' cowboy" I hear you shout; "what on earth is a 'typographic tortoise' when it's at home?"

Well I'm glad you asked me that...

Rhiannon has decided to make typography even more fun and, let's face it, it was pretty exciting to begin with! As an extra incentive in achieving typographic excellence, students are being rewarded with 'wonderful treats' throughout the day. 

Hannah who, as an illustrator, loves to draw all of the time produced an "excellent line length and nicely textured copy" for Rhiannon so, as a reward, was allowed to take Timmy (99) out of Jim's office to lovingly render his likeness in pencil crayon.

Below we see Milosz (in the background) who was allowed to watch a little* of his favourite TV show, 'The Teletypies' (All together now: "Ampersand, Ligature, En Dash, Bracket, Teletypies, Teletypies say hell-oh!").

In front we see The Typographer Royal™ handing out the award for 'best leading of the day' to a stunned Ellie (21). The prize was ten minutes stroking Baskerville our 'cute' studio puppy while Elise (also 21) sang and played all the great children's party hits ('Agadoo', 'The wheels on the bus' etc.) on her portable Casio.




We'll see how they got on with the final designs later...

*We wouldn't want to get him too excited as he may have trouble sleeping.

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