Young Designers’ Education and What to Expect of Them

➜ Apart from the easier access to basic knowledge as discussed above, another factor that has had a bearing on the recent boom in type design is probably the influence of academia, namely the teaching staff of design departments.

But the situation is far from satisfactory. On the whole, lecturers in type design and typography are still in short supply at most universities. Some of these institutions have resorted to hiring temporary help from professional commercial designers. And some have even become so bold as to offer courses in graphic design sans typography.

In general, the subject of type design is taught as a discipline within the sphere of typography, although it is often confused with the related but much broader curriculum of graphic design.

In Thailand, graphic design students are generally required to tackle occasional assignments involving type design. Although this is hardly adequate in terms of professional training, nonetheless such exposure to the world of type may help to spark a measure of personal interest in many a budding designer.

In this regard, the personal computer also acts as a catalyst that kindles enthusiasm towards fonts and font design due to its appealing manifestation of digital type and its demonstrable usefulness in the modern environment.

Type design has thus become fashionable as an art form. This perception – further reinforced by the attractive imagery of type on various visual media, especially the Internet – has led to the birth of independent font foundries, changes in the business, and culminating in an avant-garde image for the type designer.

The same phenomenon has been observed in Thailand which has been instrumental in attracting new talents to the industry who have the zeal and resourcefulness to break away from the mold imposed by their professionally-jaded predecessors.

The positive outcome brought about by the young blood has been evident: there are now a greater range of font options offering much increased flexibility for graphic work.

But there is a price to pay for such gains. This has to do with the blurring of design standards. Some degree of degradation in font work has been observed, including poor glyph outlines, bad proportions and uneven compatibility of forms. The accelerating pace of development has also given rise to disparities in training courses, careless research and studies on typography, sloppy collection and analysis of historical records, for instance. Such negative outcome will have a bearing on the industry, the immediate effect of which can be seen as a conflicting disparity in the industry and a worsening in font quality.

Although most students of font design today are provided with convenient access to technology, including the methods for creating font files, the emphasis of their education has been less on the side of practical skills. As a result, the work of many a young designer today reflects the apparent lack of understanding on the basic requirements for a good digital font.

The remedy for this situation lies partly in the proper tailoring of design courses. If typography is offered at universities as a specialized design discipline – or at the minimum as an elective – it would enable people in academia and the business operators to jointly establish a norm for the basic requirements for all Thai digital fonts, and the established norm then taught to students. In practical terms, though, such a scenario might take years to achieve, since Thai educational authorities have yet to realize the value of fonts in design terms.

So the role of today’s font designers will no longer involve the struggle for social acceptance since the notion of fonts and typography has already gained sufficient grounds in Thailand’s design communities; which could be seen in the emergence of font licensing, the growth of custom-font commissioning by large firms or organizations, and the inclusion of fonts as part of the overall design cost. What is left for young designers to carry forward in the near future will be more in terms of self-adjustment of the font business – which has already established a firm foothold in industry and is ready for a period of further growth – rather than the continuation of professional self assertion as before. This will definitely involve the development of a wider range of useful digital fonts and the establishment of an effective design norm for the industry at large.