March 19, 2026
Monads? Nah—Monograms
The Day I Discovered Type Design
A 1976 class sparked a font love story — and baffled the code crowd
TLDR: A designer recalls how a 1976 lettering class and discovering U&lc magazine sparked a lifelong passion for making fonts. Comments turned it into a nostalgia trip (optical illusions and rub‑down letters) and a meme-worthy twist when a programmer expected Haskell “types,” proving type can be craft, not code.
Vintage vibes met modern confusion, and the comments loved it. The author’s throwback tale — a 1976 lettering class, brushes and Speedball pens, a chance discovery of U&lc (the “Upper & lower case” magazine from ITC edited by legend Herb Lubalin) — had readers swooning over a time when fonts were sketched by hand and Letraset rub-down letters ruled. The kicker: a rumor that a Minneapolis designer pulled in $50K in royalties (about $290K today) had everyone whispering, “Fonts were the original side hustle.”
But the real party was in the comments. One reader flashed their own 1974 yearbook lettering and swore the design gives a trippy optical illusion, like it’s “zooming out” forever — instant nostalgia with a side of eye magic. Meanwhile, another dropped the day’s funniest plot twist: they clicked expecting a programming deep dive and got actual letters instead — “TFA is about letters, not programming in Haskell.” Cue the thread’s split personality: artists reminiscing about ink and templates, and coders realizing ‘type’ isn’t always about code. Jokes flew (“monads vs. monograms,” anyone?), but the heart of it was pure love for the craft — a reminder that before apps and shortcuts, type started with imagination, rulers, and a very steady hand.
Key Points
- •In March 1976, during a commercial art program at North Hennepin Community College near Minneapolis, the author’s interest in type design began.
- •An advanced lettering class taught pre‑desktop techniques (brush and Speedball pen) when typesetting was expensive and marker layouts were common.
- •Discovering ITC’s U&lc magazine, designed/edited by Herb Lubalin, revealed a professional path: ITC accepted submissions and paid advances and royalties.
- •The author designed a modern geometric sans based on uncial calligraphy, hand‑drafting letters with Rapid‑o‑Graph pens; the project earned an A+.
- •Although committed to type design from 1976, the author’s first published typeface appeared in the mid‑1990s, nearly 20 years later.