Now we're 'back to school', it's time to look ahead to the various events and exhibitions on the horizon. And some that are in the very near distance, such as Brazil's Letter Openers, this weekend's BLAG Chat.

Read on for a digest, and visit bl.ag/eventlistings for more detailed listings of workshops, talks, conferences, Letterheads, exhibitions, and more.

Brazil's Letter Openers

Brazil's Letter Openers, a BLAG Chat on 23 September.

Tomorrow (23 September) is the first in the next series of BLAG Events. It's a free online trip to Brazil to discover the world of its 'letter openers' with designers and typography researchers Fátima Finizola and Fernanda Martins as our guides.

Please register in advance to receive the zoom link before the event start time of 17:00 GMT.

Free Registration

More BLAG Events

The line-up for the very first BLAG Meet is close to being finalised. This free, online event is an opportunity to meet, and learn from, some of those featured in the pages of BLAG 03. The final schedule and timings for 7 October will be shared in a future email.

BLAG Meet Info

Then, in November, there are back-to-back BLAG Demos, covering one-stroke lettering and painting roses in the narrowboat tradition.

(Members get 20% off all BLAG Demos. This is a $6 saving per event, with membership plans starting from $5/month.)

One-Stroke Lettering

Roses Are Red

Letterheads 2024

Benelux Letterheads, 8–10 September 2023.

Peter Anthony has released tickets for his meet in Epsom, Surrey, UK, from 21–23 June 2024. This will be an international event, with workshops planned on fairground art, script, Roman lettering, gold leaf, and more.

Letterheads 2024

Burds of Berlin

There will be a Burds of the Brush in Berlin next year, hosted by Alex Signpainting. I'll share more details as and when they become available. In the meantime, check out the first event of its kind in BLAG 01, and Rachel E. Millar's reflections on this in BLAG 03.

Ellen Lupton is giving this year's Beatrice Warde Memorial Lecture at St Bride Library: Writing with Type.

These are just five more events selected from those in the extensive listings at bl.ag/eventlistings.

  1. The Letterform Archive exhibition, Subscription to Mischief: Graffiti Zines of the 1990s, is now available as an online experience.
  2. The Society of Gilders is hosting a Global Gilding Symposium across October with a host of in-person and online events.
  3. The Letter Exchange has released its next series of talks, which are streamed online, in addition to running in-person from their London venue.
  4. Peter Liedberg, aka Letterboy, is taking his workshops on the road with classes in Taipei, Tokyo, and Fukuoka. (He's also one half of the conversational demonstration, Sign Painters Do It in One Stroke, with Kenji Nakayama in November.)
  5. Writing with Type with Ellen Lupton is this year's Beatrice Warde Memorial Lecture. St Bride Library is hosting the in-person event which will also be streamed online.

More Event Listings

Shop Update

Some of the publications available to buy in the BLAG shop.

Thank you to everyone that has ordered from the new BLAG shop. The response has been bigger than expected, so I'm sadly sold out of a couple of titles that were always in short supply.

However, I am sourcing more publications that are either largely unheard of, or very difficult/expensive to get, and expect to have these in stock in a month or so.

(BLAG members get 10% off everything in the shop until the end of September. Upgrade now to get the discount code via email.)

Plans from $5/month

(BLAG members get 10% off everything in the shop until the end of September with discount code BTS23.)

Thank You

Thank you for reading, I hope to see you at one of these events soon. Please get in touch if you're hosting something that I should add to the event listings.

All good things, Sam

bl.ag / sam@bl.ag / @betterletters