The Greatest Lesson Typography Taught Me Was Balance

Presented by Diana Varma RGD

 
We all need balance in our lives. Too much of a good thing (no matter how creatively fulfilling or inspiring), can impact our well-being in the long term. Diana Varma (RGD) teaches typography within The Creative School at Ryerson University and she strongly believes that important life-lessons about balance are encoded within historical and modern typography. Balance in marking and spacing. Balance in selecting headline type and body type that will work well together. Balance in discovering how to make a unified anatomy when designing a new typeface. This talk is part history lesson, part typographical how-to and part philosophical musing. By dissecting typography within the Gutenberg Bible, through to experimental typography of the 1950’s and modern long-document examples, Diana shows us that if typography can teach us one thing above all else, it’s balance.
 
In this talk, you will learn:
1. How the typographic choices within the Gutenberg Bible can teach us when to make tradeoffs and throw the rules out the window for the greater good of the whole. 2. The ways in which typographic experimentation of the 1950’s can teach us how to balance form and function, fun and frivolity, in our own lives. 3. How modern typeset documents and, specifically, the use of whitespace may be a reflection of our hopes and desires as a civilization.
 
About Diana Varma RGD
 
Diana is a professional lecturer and educator in the graphic arts industry, so delivering presentations is what she does best! She teaches within the School of Graphic Communications Management (GCM), as well as the Master of Digital Media (MDM) Program at Ryerson University. She has also spoken at many conferences in Canada and in the US on a range of topics in the graphic arts industry; from augmented reality technology in Chicago, IL, to hiring strategies for print professionals in Las Vegas, NV, to designing a podcast brand identity in Toronto. She has attended RGD conferences and was a presenter at the Creative Directions 2021 conference. It’s always been a great experience and she is excited by the prospect of presenting again!
 

** RGD webinars count as IDC continuing education credits. 

 

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