After over 20 years in business, the Font Diner is pleased to announce our very own font design and font making workshops for corporations and educational institutions! We don’t want our students to come for a weekend and leave with just a few letters, we want them to create their very own working font by the time they leave!
About Our Workshops
We’ve spent years developing our one-of-a-kind font making workshops so designers of all levels with a basic knowledge of Adobe Illustrator (or Inkscape) can learn to make professional quality fonts the same way we do. We’ll teach you letter drawing basics as you create your own all caps font and give you the tools to further expand your font with a full lowercase compliment, numbers, mathematicals, punctuation, foreign characters, ligatures, alternate characters and more!
Interested in hosting your own Font Diner font making workshop for your organization or educational institution? We’d love to chat!
Fonts Created in Our Workshops
What Our Students Have To Say
Just a quick note to say thank you for the wonderful font making workshop this weekend! You are great teachers, and I really appreciated all your help. I'm going to keep practicing my font making skills!
Marcy O.
It was a great workshop! I had an awesome time this weekend and can't wait to keep pushing my lettering and type design further!
Niko A.
The workshop was a wonderful learning opportunity and very inspiring! I'm looking forward to attending another workshop in the future.
Chiemi F.
Upcoming Workshops
Font Seed Letterpress Font Making Workshop March 8th-10th, 2019
Presented by:Stuart Sandler & Dathan Boardman Cost: $225 (Two Day Workshop) Maximum Participants: 14 Location: Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin
Due to popular demand, we’re headed back to Two Rivers for this intensive two day workshop which is perfect for designers who want to learn how to make their very first font! The workshop starts off with a Friday night letterpress printing party where you’ll print and photograph your own specimen with wood type from Hamilton’s amazing collection to use as your font reference for an all caps font. The first day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics. On day two, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
You’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a two-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend both days. All participants must provide their own Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with either Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
Font Seed Font Making Workshop Presented by Monsters of Type Dates: Coming Soon
This intensive two day workshop is perfect for designers who want to learn how to make their very first font! You’ll bring a photographic reference for an all caps font you want to create and the first day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics. On day two, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
You’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a two-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend both days. All participants must provide their own Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with Adobe Illustrator which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
Meet The Instructors
Stuart Sandler
Stuart Sandler launched the Font Diner in 1996 and has inspired generations of designers with retro design software products influenced by 1950s popular culture. He has created more than 1,200 original typefaces including custom developed typefaces for Apple and Google among other large enterprises. Sandler launched Mister Retro in 2004 featuring Photoshop plug-ins and original clipart. He later acquired and began revival of both the Filmotype and Lettering Inc phototype libraries with over 200 revival releases to date.
In 2006, he co-founded and launched Font Bros as a distributor of high quality typefaces specializing in OEM licensing and retail sales. With its strong focus on OEM font licensing, Font Bros has earned a reputation as the leading font licensing agent among independent font foundries.
Sandler is also a regular speaker at the annual Typecon type design conference having spoke on typeface revivals, the font industry and font licensing. You can learn more about him from his MyFonts Creative Characters Interview.
In 2018 Sandler co-founded Font Seed with Dathan Boardman and Odd Brand Strategy, an independent font foundry dedicated to font design and licensing education that offers a high quality growing pay-what-you-want font library.
Dathan Boardman
Dathan Boardman joined the Font Diner in January of 2010 as a font engineer as the lead font technologist developing primarily with the Glyphs software application, Dathan has become a trusted beta tester of the application development team. His custom typefaces for Google released in 2011 as part of the Google Fonts Directory receive nearly a billion views daily.
In early 2012 Dathan Boardman co founded Great Lakes Lettering with lettering artist Molly Jacques to provide calligraphic inspired fonts to the public so that everyone could add a hand made touch to digital designs.
Since establishing GLL fonts, Molly and Dathan’s designs have made their way into thousands of designs throughout the world. As Great Lakes Lettering continues to grow, they have welcomed some of the best calligraphers in the industry to contribute to the foundry’s already impressive list of available fonts.
In 2018 Dathan co-founded Font Seed with Stuart Sandler and Odd Brand Strategy, an independent font foundry dedicated to font design and licensing education that offers a high quality growing pay-what-you-want font library.
Recent Workshops
Font Seed Font Making Workshop @ Vitchcraft Dates: October 27th-28th, 2018
Instructors:Stuart Sandler & Dathan Boardman Cost: $200 Student/$240 Professional (Two Day Workshop) Maximum Participants: 24 Location: Chicago, Illinois
Branding goes far beyond a good logo, thoughtful website or intelligent copy. Now, its more important than ever to bring the visual language you develop for your clients into every aspect of their brand. Custom fonts are one of the best ways to capture this voice in every medium and font creation can become another tool in your design arsenal.
Isn’t making fonts hard you ask? Well, do you know Adobe Illustrator? If the answer is yes, then we can teach you how to develop your own custom fonts for clients or your own projects as you expand your design skills by seeing fonts in a totally new way once you’ve created your own.
This intensive two day workshop is perfect for designers who want to learn how to make their very first font. You’ll bring a photographic reference for an all caps font you want to create and the first day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics. On day two, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
You’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a two-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend both days. All participants must provide their own Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with Adobe Illustrator which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
Font Diner Font Making Workshop Presented by Monsters of Type September 17th-18th, 2018
This intensive two day workshop is perfect for designers who want to learn how to make their very first font! You’ll bring a photographic reference for an all caps font you want to create and the first day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics. On day two, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
You’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a two-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend both days. All participants must provide their own Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with Adobe Illustrator which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
Font Diner Letterpress Printing & Font Making Workshop February 23rd-25th, 2018
Presented by:Stuart Sandler & Dathan Boardman Cost: $225 (Two Day Workshop) Maximum Participants: 14 Location: Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin
This intensive two day workshop is perfect for designers who want to learn how to make their very first font! The workshop starts off with a Friday night letterpress printing party where you’ll print and scan your own specimen with wood type from Hamilton’s amazing collection to use as your font reference for an all caps font. The first day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics. On day two, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
You’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a two-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend both days. All participants must provide their own Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with either Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
Disney Creative Group Orlando – Private Event December 8th, 2017
Font Diner Route 66 Sign Safari & Font Making Workshop August 11th-13th, 2017
Presented by:Stuart Sandler & Dathan Boardman Cost: $200 Student/$240 Professional (Three Day Workshop) Maximum Participants: 36 Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Established in 1996 with over 1,200 fonts under our belt, nothing gets us more excited at the Font Diner than hitting the open road and laying our eyeballs on the actual signage and ephemera that has inspired our retro American display font library. We’re excited to bring that experience to you as we teach you how to make you make your very own font! We’re not talking a few words or letters, but an actual typeable font you can use for your very own projects or use as you wish!
The main reason we selected St. Louis for this workshop is because it’s part of the Route 66 story and it’s still chock full of amazing signage still intact from the 1950s and 1960s! We’ll spend the first full day shooting photographs of these amazing signs throughout the city stopping every so often for passengers to swap from car-to-car with 3-4 stops along the way! By the end of the day you’ll have some amazing vintage sign photos and a swell new group of pals!
The second day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics using the photos we shot the day previously as your reference and our goal is to help you complete a set of 26 capital letters by the end of the day. On our third day together, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
While we’re together throughout the weekend, we’ll have a host of special surprise evening events that we can’t wait to share with you and you’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a three-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend all three days. All participants must provide their own transportation, a Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with either Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
Font Diner Eau Claire Font Making Workshop July 15th-16th, 2017
Presented by:Stuart Sandler & Dathan Boardman Cost: $100 Student/$120 Professional (Two Day Workshop) Maximum Participants: 16 Location: Eau Claire, Wisconsin
This intensive two day workshop is perfect for designers who want to learn how to make their very first font! You’ll bring a photographic reference for an all caps font you want to create and the first day will be totally focused on vector letter tracing/drawing basics. On day two, we’ll switch gears and spend the day importing your letters, spacing, kerning and generating your first font!
You’ll leave with a strong foundation how to develop your own typefaces and how to expand on the font you’ve created at this workshop to use as you wish!
This is a two-day workshop and participants must be prepared to attend both days. All participants must provide their own Macintosh laptop computer and must be proficient with either Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape which will need be installed on your laptop prior to the workshop. As part of your registration, you’ll also receive a trial version of the Glyphs font making application which you will install just prior to the workshop.
