The Design Issue 2016

The Design Issue

Design Week Is Back. Here's Your Game Plan.

How to Design Week

An Illustrated Introduction to Design Week Portland

Portland(s) of Tomorrow in Futurelandia

What Will the City Look Like in 50, 100, 200 Years?

Equity and Aesthetics Should Mix

Historian Reiko Hillyer Talks Density, Affordable Housing, and Equal Access to Public Space

Kevin Cavenaugh's Art of Risk

The Guerrilla Development Owner on Bringing Thoughtfulness, Creativity, and Risk into Portland Development

Design Week Portland: A User's Guide

Our Picks for Every Day of the Festival

Feeling the Overview Effect

Composer Tylor Neist Replicates an Astronaut's Return to Earth

The Central Eastside's Vanishing Borders

Diving into the Future of One of Portland's Most Rapidly Changing Areas

AKQA + New Avenues for Youth = A Very Different Pigeon

At-Risk Youth Partner with Digital Design Firm to Create New Fashion Brand

Crystal Beasley's Data-Driven Antidote to Fast Fashion

Her Portland-Based Company Is Finally Making a Goddamn Pair of Pants That Fits

A Master Class in Wedding Calligraphy and Hand-Lettered Logos

Precious Bugarin and Bryn Chernoff Will Help You Make Your Own Font!

Essential Real Talk for Creative Freelancers

The Overshare: PDX Podcast Covers the Design Life—No Unicorns or Butterflies Allowed

Chelsea Peil's Ways of Looking at a Leaf

The Design Consultant on Visualizing the Shift Toward a Waste-Free Economy

IF YOU CAN'T draw letters, can you really draw? And if you don't have a personal brand, do you really exist? The fact that I had to ask these questions at all makes the case for "More Than a Pretty (Type) Face: Professional Practice and Techniques for Hand-Lettered Logo Design," a three-hour Design Week workshop offered by Precious Bugarin and Bryn Chernoff.

"There's a clear trend in branding and advertising toward hand-lettered work, which is why Precious and I decided to tackle it together in this workshop," says Chernoff. The emphasis on typography in design that emerged a few years back has fused and melded with interest in handmade artisanal goods in every other part of society, and now you basically have to be good at hand-lettering if you're in the graphic-design world. With this in mind, Bugarin and Chernoff want to arm workshop attendees with the skills to garner respect and attention in the industry.

Using the hand-lettering techniques you'll learn in the workshop—Chernoff has a background in calligraphy and lots of experience making killer wedding invitations—you'll set to work on logo design. Bugarin plans to provide a lesson on the history of logo design and lead participants in brainstorming exercises that will help them build and design logos for themselves or a particular project. Bugarin, who also has extensive wedding invitation experience (maybe you want to hand-letter your wedding logo in this class?), started her own design studio in Portland 15 years ago and also teaches at Portland State University and Portland Community College.

"We're hopeful it can serve a wide variety of folks: those approaching a branding project for their business, designers looking to expand their range of work, and anyone curious about either branding or calligraphy," says Chernoff. "We're excited to work with people coming from all different points of reference and experience." The workshop would be particularly useful for newcomers or designers looking to build a career, but unsure of where to start. Start with a logo! Think about why they're important and what they mean, and then think about how to draw one with your own clumsy hands.


More Than a Pretty (Type) Face: Professional Practice and Techniques for Hand-Lettered Logo Design
PSU Art Building, 2000 SW 5th, Wed April 20, noon, $65