Have you ever wanted to set type in three dimensions? This one-day workshop will focus on just that: building and animating typography in three dimensions using the open-source program Blender and the open-source Blender extension ST2, which brings high-quality typography and font support 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 nothing to do with typography. Even if do find a typographically-focused tutorial, you’ll quickly learn that typography is not one of Blender’s built-in superpowers. 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 by typographically-minded designers.
We’ll start with some Blender fundamentals, move quickly on to creating 3D type with ST2, and by the end of the day we’ll be positioning virtual cameras, building towers made of glyphs, crashing those towers together using physics simulations, rendering the results to photorealistic videos, then sharing our videos with the class.

Who should attend
Students and professionals in graphic design who have always wanted to try 3D, or—on the flip side—students and professionals in 3D/animation who have always wanted to try typography. No knowledge of 3D or Blender or programming is required for the class, though an interest in typography would be helpful.

Materials
Please bring a laptop. Blender runs on all operating systems and should run on most recent OS versions, but it does require a modicum of computing power, so the more powerful your laptop, the more you’ll be able to get out of Blender (though there’s still a ton to get out of Blender even without a powerful laptop!).

Before class
If you have time, please try to install Blender and ST2. We’ll cover the installation process in class as well, but the fewer installation issues we run into in the workshop, the more time we’ll have to build towers made of letters.

Schedule
10 AM – 12 PM: Installing Blender & building 3D typography
1 PM – 3 PM: Building a typographic physics simulation
3 PM – 4 PM: Rendering an animation and sharing with the class

Meet your instructor
Rob Stenson is a designer-musician based in Monrovia, California. After studying architectural history and computer science at Columbia University, Rob worked for a spell as a programmer in San Francisco before co-founding the audio software company Goodhertz, where he designs audio plugin interfaces and leads marketing. He also maintains the open-source typography programming library Coldtype, the Blender typography extension ST2, and has contributed to FontGoggles. In addition to programming, Rob has done freelance typographic animations for the type foundries OHno Type Co and DJR, as well as lyric videos for the band Vulfpeck and the ill-fated streaming service Quibi (among others). In recent years, Rob has given talks and led workshops on Coldtype/Python programming and Blender typography at Typographics, Inscript, and the Letterform Archive. When not programming or designing, you might find Rob at home playing banjo, or stopping on the street to take a picture of an interesting building, or—most likely—curating impromptu playlists of kpop for his dancing daughter.