TypeCon is Coming!

Mayor Bloomberg has declared July 18-24 to be “Type Week” in Manhattan! This is, in our opinion, quite a coup for the design community—we don’t recall ever seeing “Grammar & Spelling Week” for copy editors or “Lede & Nut Graf Week” for reporters or “Optimized Workflow Week” for the IT department.

Font freaks get the nod because of the TypeCon 2005 conference, held jointly by the Society of Typographic Aficionados and the Type Directors Club, and taking place this year at Parsons School of Design, July 20-24.

While the conference does sound dorkily cool—five days of panels, discussions, workshops, etc., on things like publication design, graffiti and tattoo lettering, blackletter typography, and calligraphy—the website advertising the conference is a bit misleading. We were very excited by the series of sepia-tinted photos that feature different fonts around New York; alas, they are simply a marketing device for Gotham as a venue and not, as we had hoped, an advertisement for a walking tour of New York’s most interesting typefaces, which is something we would totally attend.

But what’s this? There’s Mexican-themed type trivia? Dress us up in sparkles and hand us a margarita—we’re so there!

Feel free to submit your own typeface design here.

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