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Lynda Weinman: So Doyland, I'm so glad that you could join us, and congratulations on
being honored tonight at the AIGA Gala and being
a medalist. Doyland Young: Thank you very much!
Lynda: Could you introduce yourself to our audience?
Doyland: Well, I'm a teacher at Art Center. I have been since 1955.
Tink Adams hired me, the founder of the school. Lynda: Wow!
Doyland: I taught there until 1978 when I took a hiatus and did a lot of work for Japan.
I came back in 1997 and have been there off and on ever since.
Also in the meantime, I started writing books in 1990.
My first book was called Logotypes & Letterforms where I have 169 of my logos in it.
Once I got through with that, I started writing a new one called Fonts & Logos,
which is all about typography, 75% typography. What a letter truly is and how it's shaped.
Then once I got through with that, I started writing another one, which is called
Dangerous Curves is my latest book. Lynda: It's a great title.
Doyland: And it's now sold in 30 different countries.
So I'm delighted about that, and also during that time, an old friend, Tim
Needham of SMART Papers, said, Doyland, would you like to do a book for us
with your work in it? And he said there are about 40 pages from
both of your books. It turned out to be 90 pages, and it's the
world's most fancy book. It's printed on outer edge folded sheets.
It's got six colors of foil in it, four colors of engraving, three colors of
litho, three blind-embossed images, and there is nine divided pages, and
it comes boxed, and we gave it away to 37 events of AIGA all over the country,
a tour that I did. So that's what I do.
Lynda: Ah. So you've been involved with AIGA before?
Doyland: Yes, probably for 10-12 years. Lynda: What does AIGA mean to you?
Doyland: Well, AIGA really has great focus on education, and it's a great aid for
students, for teachers, for designers, and for the business world at large.
Lynda: With everything moving into the digital age so rapidly, a lot of this is
becoming a lost art, but how do you think that people in the future will have
an appreciation for the art and craft of type design?
Doyland: Someone must draw a font to begin with.
It all starts with drawing, no matter how you draw it, whether it's with the
pencil or with the cursor. But before you do that, don't you have to
have some understanding of what the letter form is and what a font does?
Lynda: You would think. Doyland: Yes, so you have to bring that knowledge
to a font design program. Hermann Zapf, my great hero, says, spend 600
hours on the board then go to your computer. Lynda: Wow!
Doyland: I think that I am blessed that I can draw a letter quickly and then scan it
and then digitize it. Did you ever start trying to digitize a letter
without a drawing? It takes a lot of time to do all of that.
Lynda: To clean it up. Doyland: Yes, of course. Lynda: Are there any other resources that
you would recommend to up and coming type designers or people interested in learning
more about type? Doyland: Well, there's always the history
of type. There is the great classic one, which is written
by Daniel Berkeley Updike in 1923, and it's called Type Forms, Their History
and Usage. And it's a two volume book, and it's really
the history of classical types. That gives you really a great background.
Nothing is original these days. It's all been done before, and what we are
really doing is redrawing the past with our aesthetic applied to it.
Lynda: Well, it is indeed an honor to get to meet you, and I'm so grateful that you
came and spoke with us and congratulations again.
Doyland: Well, thank you very much. Okay.