Being There

Everybody says Reading is at its most beautiful at the beginning of autumn, before the long, dark, grey winter. I’m now enjoying every minute of sunshine and generally still trying to get a feel for the place. It’s the second week of lessons now, the third since I arrived from Italy, and things are looking great so far. I finished last week by taking a short break off to London. I hadn’t been there since five years and I found it much better! I made a visit to a very nice design studio near Old Street, then I went out for a pint and some sausages and mashed potatoes with Matte, who I hadn’t seen in ages.

This week started with the first Michael Twyman lecture. Michael set up the typography department, and even though he’s retired now he still comes in every monday to show items from his huge, amazing personal collection, to challenge the minds of us MA students. It was brilliant.

I stayed for another hour after class looking at the samples he brought in, then in the evening I started the Foxhill Drawing Bureau with Camille and Gesine: we would pick an image from the ones I shot, then redrew some bits that interested us and then some. Really fun!

Today we had another lecture with Gerry about the influence of the tools on letterforms and then a wonderful lecture from the visiting Alastair Johnston on Richard Austin (both of them, father and son). Tomorrow Fiona will introduce us to the resources in the department, then we have a letterpress workshop on thursday and then we’re off for the weekend. Next week: Gerard Unger!

Oh, and tomorrow I’m ordering my new laptop, so that should be cool as well. What can I say, I’m having a blast so far!

The title of this post refers to the Peter Sellers movie Being There which we saw over at Claus’ place two days ago – and which I loved.