Addendum to Michael Harvey’s Teaching Notes, parts 8C and 8D

Eric Kindel, Associate Professor of Graphic Communication, University of Reading has kindly sent in his recollections of studying with Michael Harvey in the 1990s. Here are his comments:

I attended Michael’s ‘Letterforms’ classes (and James Mosley’s lectures) in 1996–1997. I was working at Central Saint Martins at the time (on the ‘Typeform dialogues’ project), and CSM kindly sponsored my time away from work and my travel expenses. James’ classes were every Saturday morning (9:30–10:30), while Michael’s classes took place in six groups of three days each (Tuesdays–Thursdays). They were:

15–17 October 1996: Roman capitals
19–21 November: The manuscript letter
21–23 January 1997: The engraved letter
18–20 February: The drawn letter
13–15 May: Carving letters in stone
3–5 June: The digital letter

Robin Nicholas made a guest appearance at the last session. Gerard Unger contributed to at least one other session, but I can’t recall which one.

The first sketch you show in 8D would have been for the session ‘The drawn letter’, as it matches my notes for 18 February. The writing in red matches the topics introduced on the Tuesday and Wednesday in my notes. I don’t remember (and don’t have a record of) a talk by Mike Pratley, so that may have been a different year.

I think all the other sketches would have been from the digital letter days.

We did have a talk by Robin Nicholas on 5 June 1997, but unfortunately, I have no other notes for that last group of days in June.

In regard to your 8C post, as I recall, the punchcutting and the cutting in lino took place in the sessions about the engraved letter. The notes about inscriptional letters would, of course, have been from the ‘Carving letters in stone’ days.

It should be added (as Michael says in his book, Adventures with Letters, pp. 170–171) that the annual ‘Letterforms’ course was funded by Monotype. I was among the six or so ‘grownups’ invited each year to mix in with the undergraduates. Andy Benedek, with whom Michael later collaborated in the Fine Fonts venture, also attended that year.