It’s time for another round of type lectures from our friends at Type@Cooper West, hosted at the San Francisco Public Library and free to the public.

If you’ve enjoyed these lectures in previous seasons, how does spending a full weekend at a Cooper Type workshop sound? Pretty rad, right? You don’t have to be a full-time student to attend, either — these are made for people with busy schedules. Take a look at their upcoming workshops, which all take place at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco.

As for the lecture series, here’s what Cooper Type has in store this fall. (Not in SF? We’re sponsoring the video recordings for these again, and will let you know as soon as the recordings become available online.)

Donald Knuth: Thirty-Two Years of Metafont

September 20, 6:00pm

We profiled Donald Knuth back in 2013, when he won the Dr. Peter Karow Award for Font Technology and Digital Typography. He is perhaps best known for inventing the TeX system for digital typesetting, and it will be a pleasure to hear him reflect on his work and its long-ranging impact on the type world.

Stephen Coles: What’s the Use of Fonts In Use?

October 4, 6:00pm

Stephen Coles co-founded Fonts in Use in 2010 with Nick Sherman and Sam Berlow, and it has since become one of the most extensive internet resources for typographers who want to get a sense of design trends in type. In this talk, Stephen shares what he’s learned after more than five years running the site.

Christopher Slye: “Whose Font is it, Anyway?” …Exploring the Business & Licensing of Type

October 18, 6:00pm

We’re delighted to see our own Christopher Slye take the stage to explain the business side of type, which is invisible to most people who use type every day. Font licensing is tricky business, but it doesn’t have to be. Christopher will offer guidance on being a good consumer of type and a wise distributor of it — and how to stay on the right side of intellectual property law either way.

Nicolas Barker: Visible Voices: Translating Verse into Script and Print, 3000BC–AD2000

November 1, 6:00pm

Has poetry over the centuries been influenced by the physical media poets use to compose and share their words? Author and scholar Nicolas Barker will explore this question with a focused study of the shifting shapes poetry has taken across different moments in Western culture.

We’ll keep you posted as the video recordings become available — and if you’re in the Bay Area, we hope you’ll join for these free lectures. It’s a fantastic way to spend a Tuesday evening, and a great introduction to the type community. See you soon!