This class will focus on building and animating typography in three dimensions using the open-source program Blender and the open-source Blender extension ST2, which brings native high-quality — and cutting-edge — typography to the Blender ecosystem. Blender can be a daunting program to learn, and when you do set out to learn it, most of what you’ll find online has absolutely nothing to do with typography. Which is why this class exists: to lead you on a tour of this powerful 3D program, always with an eye on how it can be used as a tool in your typographic toolchest. From building (and crashing) towers made of glyphs, to taking shallow depth-of-field photographs of Noordzij cubes, to mocking up wayfinding systems in photorealistic architectural environments, we’ll explore the ins and outs of physics, cameras, mirrors, and variable fonts. No knowledge of 3D or Blender or programming is required for this class, though you should know something about typography. Blender runs on all major operating systems, though you will want a recent and/or somewhat powerful computer, as Blender does — for the best experience — require a little computing power to create beautiful photorealistic images.
