The City of Chicago Design Series | Big Shoulders: Fonts for Chicagoans
Event Information
About this Event
In 2020, Chicago got its first identity program, called the Chicago Design System. Its suite of typefaces, called Big Shoulders, was Patric King's sole design task for two years.
Patric will talk about the process and technicalities involved in making type for an entire community, from research to equitable representation to design to publishing, in a way that an entire city—government to citizens—can use.
You'll also learn how to make sure your Chicago Star tattoo is, in fact, the correct Chicago Star.
Attendees can expect to learn about:
- The experience of getting a type design project through a gigantic bureaucracy.
- Thinking equitably about representing communities during design.
- Hunting for sponsorship when your project has literally zero budget, but needs to exist.
-----
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Patric King is is a designer with a head for language, type and organization; he began his career with Thirst in 1994. While there, he built the studio’s type foundry, and managed its online works. In 1999, he took a position with Leapnet to create a continuing education program for its 40 designers, then began HoP in 2002. From 2002-2012 he was the de facto visual creative director for Gawker Media.
@xotypeco on Twitter & IG (DMs are open to everyone)
-----
GOODIES
Patric is running a limited-edition print run of Big Shoulders type samples with half of the proceeds being donated to My Block My Hood My City.
Snag a copy here.
-----
CALL TO ARTISTS
To celebrate our upcoming talk about our typeface Big Shoulders, we turn to you, our community.
Write a statement about what Chicago means to you and interpret it by designing a 11x17in poster using the Big Shoulders typeface (available through Google Fonts).
Visit https://design.chicago.gov/ for Chicago's visual identity guidelines.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing entries via our social media.
We’re planning on a doing a print run of selected entries which will be available for sale. Half the proceeds will go to supporting our mission to continue providing free programing and the other half will be donated to My Block, My Hood, My City (M3)
If your submission is selected for printing, we'll contact you with further details.
At a later date, all submissions will be displayed in a virtual exhibition on our website.
Deadline is April 10
Submit Here
Email us at info@chicagographicdesign.club if you have any problems with your submission.
— Chicago Graphic Design Club (https://chicagographicdesign.club/)
Follow The Chicago Graphic Design Club on Instagram and join our Slack group.