TypeCon2013 Education Forum Call for Speakers

The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) is pleased to announce that it will present its eighth Type & Design Education Forum as part of TypeCon2013. This special program will be held on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon.

The theme of this year’s Type & Design Education Forum is:

Changing of the Guard

Educators today often feel like they are facing a changing of the guard, or even a Solomon’s choice between educating students in the fundamentals which will give them an aesthetic foundation for creative thinking, or teaching them competent usage of the evolving technologies which they must master to succeed in the workplace. Sometimes our choices are driven by economic decisions made at the administrative level; sometimes they are influenced by our own trepidation at embracing new platforms that are more familiar to our students than ourselves. Many schools have abandoned trying to keep up with both sides of the equation.None of us are good at everything our students need to learn if they are to have the best creative education. How do we teach to our strengths and ensure that students work to theirs? How do we synthesize the two principles of technology and fundamentals? How do we look forward and innovate rather than stagnate or streamline to the point of net loss? The robustness of our teaching depends on finding a new synthesis.SOTA invites you to submit proposals for 30-minute talks that elucidate successes in blending technology and fundamentals and how it can be done. We also will continue our popular 20-minute assignment presentations, showing specific assignments that have been successful in the classroom. If you feel your presentation can be an effective 40-minute keynote address for the Type & Design Education Forum, please indicate this in your proposal.

Proposal Guidelines & Requirements

Proposals should be submitted in PDF and contain the following information:

• The title and a brief synopsis of your presentation
• Supporting images (Assignment presentations must include examples of student outcomes)
• Your CV and contact information
• Your biography, edited for publicity (100 words maximum)
• Your head shot (square cropped, high resolution, print quality)

Please send all submissions to education@typesociety.org by Friday, March 15th, 2013