Course Description
In this unique course taught at Letterform Archive, students
will have access to original printed materials and type
specimens as a team of instructors from the Archive guide
students through key developments in type and design
history. Each lecture will be anchored to a curated selection
from the collection of over fifty thousand original works of
graphic design that are housed at Letterform Archive.
During the semester, we will examine both the limits
and the possibilities offered by important technological
innovations over the course of letterform history. We’ll
also look at the way various cultural, political, and artistic
movements, styles, and subcultures have historically
impacted and interacted with type and letterform design.
A study of the development of type and visual
communication in art, graphic design, illustration,
and popular culture. The influence of political, social,
technological, and commercial forces will be discussed and
analyzed, with an emphasis on the use and interpretation
of imagery, symbols, and type in design. An historical
background will be provided through weekly hands-on
lectures with primary materials, and students are expected
to actively participate in class discussions each week.
Students will submit a weekly written report critically
assessing some aspect of the materials viewed, and students
will collaborate on “setting a table;” curating and discussing
works from the Archive for both the midterm and final
projects.Letterform Archive | Letterform Archive is a nonprofit
center for inspiration, education, publishing, and community.
The Archive was founded by Rob Saunders, a collector of the
letter arts for over 40 years, as a place to share his private
collection with the public. We opened to visitors in February
2015 and now offer hands-on access to a curated collection
of over 50,000 items related to lettering, typography,
calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years
of history.Elective
DESGN-6720-1: Context: Type Survey History
Spring 2020
Units: 3 | Available: 12/12
Instructor: Letterform Archive StaffCourse Description
Day by day, we encounter more and more things with power
cables and batteries, sensors and central processors, unique
identifiers and network connectivity. This course critically
and speculatively investigates new and emerging paradigms
of interactive sensing and networked technologies. Focusing
on social and ethical design issues—such as trust, bias,
privacy, and transparency—this course combines seminar
readings and discussion with studio-based design activitiesand projects. Through a combination of readings and hands-
on demonstrations, we will study concrete network andsensing technologies, such a facial recognition systems,
brain-computer interfaces, activity trackers, and smart homesurveillance cameras. Course projects involve hybrid writing-
making projects. This course will also present training andopportunities for students to publish and exhibit design
research to audiences in academia and industry.James Pierce | James Pierce is an Assistant Professor of
Design at California College of the Arts, researcher at the UC
Berkeley CITRIS and Banatao institute, and affiliate of the
UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity.
Pierce’s interdisciplinary research practice combine
methods from design, engineering, social sciences, art,
and the humanities. As a design researcher, he practices
and reflects upon design as a mode of inquiry, critical
engagement, and speculative exploration. Pierce has
longstanding research interests in speculative design, design
theory, sustainable design, and everyday social practices. His
current research investigates issues of privacy, cybersecurity,
trust, and fairness with emerging interactive, connected, and
artificially intelligent technologies.
Of particular interest across his work is the real
uses of not-fully-actualized things: proposals, sketches,
prototypes, diagrams, scenarios, and other designs that don’t
fully pass the threshold into “real world” status.

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