The Typographics festival includes a variety of workshops and local tours between June 22 and July 2, covering everything from hand lettering to creative coding.
Those with in-person tickets to the main Typographics conference are eligible for a 10% discount on the workshops and tours below. Email type@cooper.edu before registering for a workshop for a special promo code. No partial refunds will be given.
Registration for Typographics workshops and tours is separate from the main Typographics conference and TypeLab. You must register for those events separately.
Workshops and tours take place in person in NYC unless noted otherwise. Schedules are listed in NYC time (EDT/UTC-4).
Please note: Typographics participants are subject to our Code of Conduct & Policies. If you do not agree to these conditions, do not register or attend any Typographics events.
Join Associate Curator Niv Allon for an insider tour of the Egyptian Galleries. Learn how art, sign and language interact from a premier specialist in ancient Egyptian texts and scripts.
Mon, June 22,
2026
10–11am
$10
Details and registration
Traditional paper grocery store window signs are a classic American sign (painting) staple requiring lettering, layout and production skills. In this hands-on workshop, learn to letter and design layouts for paper signs and to work with Japan color paint on butcher paper as well as the tricks of the trade to do professional quality signs quickly. Day one will focus on layout and letter design and day two will focus on execution and tricks of the trade for fast production.
Mon–Tue,
June 22–23,
2026
10am–5pm
$535
Details and registration
Join Alicia Cheng, Head of Design, and members of the design team for an inside look at how design operates at the largest museum in America. Tour the galleries and the design offices for an in-depth look at how typographic and design choices work within the creative process.
Tue, June 23,
2026
10am–12:30pm
$10
Details and registration
Why do most book covers tend to look like every other book cover? In this 2-day workshop, graphic designer Paul Sahre will be your guide as we explore the possibilities of cover design outside of the context of cover briefs, mood boards and pre-sales meetings. We will question the notion of ‘cover as marketing tool’ or what a cover ‘should’ look like. Rather, we will be concerned with drawing out the each designer’s unique point of view, as applied to a particular book (of your choosing) and exploring cover design with an eye to making work that matters.
Wed–Thu,
June 24–25,
2026
10–5am
$535
Details and registration
Get an introduction to the fundamentals of spatial thinking and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) while exploring the principles of cartographic design. This weekend workshop focuses on using open-source GIS tools (such as QGIS) to create custom maps that can be integrated into design projects using platforms like Adobe Creative Suite and Figma.
Wed–Thu,
June 24–25,
2026
10am–5pm
$535
Details and registration
Gretel’s Dylan Mulvaney and independent type designer Ryan Bugden walk through the making of a custom typeface for the Philadelphia Museum of Art from brief to specimen. Tour the studio, hear the story, and stay for drinks and conversation. The closest G-train station is Bedford-Nostrand Avenues station.
Wed, June 24,
2026
4–7pm
$5
Details and registration
Discover the rhythm and structure of calligraphy while learning to see letterforms in a new way. This workshop introduces the fundamentals of pointed pen calligraphy through the lens of historical Copperplate script—a formal yet fluid style that encourages precision, rhythm, and creative exploration.
Thu, June 25,
2026
10am–3pm
$225
Details and registration
Learn to leverage your python skills to draw and modify fonts (UFO) with Python and the “pen protocol”. Pens are the foundation of the UFO workflow in type design, whether you script your own pens or just draw Béziers with a UI, you interact with them everyday. We will learn about a brief history of Bézier curves, how they’re constructed, how we can make them, and develop our own algorithms to draw new forms.
Thu, June 25,
2026
10am–6pm
$315
Details and registration
Join the design team at this prominent NYC type foundry for a rare tour of the studio and collections. At this in-person event, Tobias Frere-Jones, Nina Stössinger, and Fred Shallcrass will offer a tour of Tobias’s extensive library of type specimens and other typographic objects, collected over the course of his design career. See their personal favorites and historical curios, which offer a look into the history of type design and the business of typefounding. This event takes place at Frere-Jones Type’s studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Thu, June 25,
2026
2–3pm
$5
Details and registration
Join the design team at this prominent NYC type foundry for a rare tour of the studio and collections. At this in-person event, Tobias Frere-Jones, Nina Stössinger, and Fred Shallcrass will offer a tour of Tobias’s extensive library of type specimens and other typographic objects, collected over the course of his design career. See their personal favorites and historical curios, which offer a look into the history of type design and the business of typefounding. This event takes place at Frere-Jones Type’s studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Thu, June 25,
2026
3–4pm
$5
Details and registration
Learn drawing techniques and understand letter structure through the lens of graffiti writing to strengthen your type and lettering work. This workshop centers on graffiti pieces and the rich subculture of graffiti writers, a tradition of letterforms that originated on New York City subways in the 1970s. Through drawing exercises, historical context, and live demonstrations, participants learn how to draw on ideas from the graffiti world while respecting the art form and its practitioners. You will work through a series of drawings, developing one concept into a lettering piece, drawn alphabet, or foundation for a new display typeface.
Sun, June 28,
2026
10am–5pm
$535
Details and registration
One-day crash course in procedural workflows within Adobe After Effects. This workshop focuses on building modular setups, toolkits, and systems using native AE features, and scripting. We’ll cover core techniques including expressions, expression controls, precomp structures, and the Essential Graphics panel—all aimed at helping you develop workflows that are flexible and scalable. The class is fast-paced and hands-on, with a mix of demos and guided exercises. Participants are encouraged to build along, experiment, and ask questions throughout the day.
Sun, June 28,
2026
10am–6pm
$315
Details and registration
In this two-day class, you will learn the basics of designing and generating a variable font with the font-design software Glyphs (Mac only). Go beyond choosing the same typefaces from the type menu to creating your own!
On the first day, we will learn the basics of drawing a font, generate the font, and use it in an Adobe app or a web browser. In the afternoon, we will add additional letters to the font, learning how to space them, add diacritics and punctuation.
On the second day, we will add more letters, design a bold version of the same typeface, create a variable font—and make it animate in a web browser. At the end of the class, you will probably not have a finished font, but a respectable start and a deep understanding about how fonts are made. And maybe you’ll become a type design addict. You have been warned.
Level and prerequisites: beginner, no prior knowledge necessary. Bring your MacBook.
Sun–Mon,
June 28–29,
2026
10am–6pm
$630
Details and registration
Join Andrea Achi, Associate Curator in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, for an insider tour of The Met’s Byzantine galleries focused on texts, inscriptions, and the visual culture of writing. Through manuscripts, mosaics, icons, and liturgical objects, the tour will explore the many scripts and languages of the Byzantine world and consider how writing functioned across devotional, imperial, and artistic contexts from Late Antiquity through the fifteenth century.
Tue, June 30,
2026
10–11am
$10
Details and registration
Ever want to ask a type designer what they think about X? Or, how do they do Y? Or possibly, how does one commission Z? Now’s your chance to ask the design team at XYZ Type all your questions about typeface design and their practice. An entirely remote team, Ben Kiel (St. Louis, Missouri), Jesse Ragan (Beacon, New York), and Zrinka Buljubašić (Guadalajara, Mexico) will virtually open their studios, share in-progress work, and show some gems from their book collections.
XYZ Type is an independent digital type foundry, designing typefaces and lettering that empower designers to do their best work.
Wed, July 1,
2026
1–2pm
Free
Details and registration
Established in 2013, Noble Signs is a Brooklyn-based studio dedicated to the art of hand-painted and craft signage in the New York area, specifically focusing on the vernacular lettering styles that lend our city its unique visual identity. Out of that mission, the New York Sign Museum was born. Serving as a resource for community members, historians, and designers alike, the museum is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the mission of preserving historic signage from around the New York metropolitan area. This tour will take participants through both floors of the prewar factory building that houses the collection, allowing visitors to catch a glimpse of NYC signage history, and to get a behind the scenes peek at the ins and outs of a working signage studio.
Thu, July 2,
2026
3–4pm
$5
Details and registration
More workshops and tours are being planned and will be announced over the coming weeks. For updates and announcements, join the Typographics mailing list and follow Typographics on Mastodon and Instagram.
More info about this year’s Typographics will be announced in the coming weeks.
Join the mailing list to get the latest news and announcements: