Type Electives is an online design school shaping the future of type.

We offer a wide range of live online classes focused on letterforms, including type design, lettering, and creative technology. Our faculty is made up of people who approach their practice from a place of respect, responsibility, criticality, and love. We're excited to work with students interested in exploring a future founded in these principles.

Our Mission

We aim to form a more inclusive and equitable future in type and design by increasing accessibility to specialized education, and creating a thoughtful space to shape the discourse around type as culture and industry.

We are a diverse community of lifelong learners, multi-disciplinary designers and artists, making space for the multiple narratives and truths that shape our practices.

We believe in encouraging active knowledge-sharing and meaningful dialogue that honor each other's local traditions and cultures, rooted in place and community, to redefine the way we practice design.

Making type education more accessible
  • Specialized classes exploring the analog, digital, and cutting-edge potential of letterforms
  • Scholarships to students from under-privileged and under-represented communities
  • A curriculum that enables a non-linear path toward an education in type
  • A core curriculum focusing on developing solid foundational type skills complemented with workshops and lectures.
Bringing a thoughtful approach to education
  • Engaging with educators who have critical thinking and engaged pedagogy as an intrinsic part of their practice
  • Leading a classroom founded on mindfulness and integrity
  • Nurturing students to become self-directed learners who can be confident in creating a body of work that celebrates their unique voices and lived experiences
  • Creating a curriculum that promotes observation, reflection, and thoughtful engagement.
Cultivating and engaging with our community
  • Offering workshops, classes, and lectures to share the craft and love of our profession
  • Compensating teachers, organizers, and assistants a fair wage
  • Providing a platform for new voices to share their stories and new ideas to be heard
  • Encouraging established voices to share their knowledge with the community
  • Providing an online space for open dialogue and peer-learning
  • Celebrating the achievements of our community members.

Meet the Team

Portrait of a man wearing glasses and a black t-shirt

Juan Villanueva (he/him) is a Peruvian typeface designer and educator in New York City. Juan is a Sr. Type Designer at Monotype. A graduate of the Type@Cooper Extended program, he has taught for institutions such as Type@Cooper, The City College of New York, and The Letterform Archive. Juan is also the founder of Type Crit Crew, an initiative to make type design education more accessible and inclusive.

A long haired Asian woman on top of a light blue background

Lynne Yun (she/her) is a Korean typeface designer and educator fluidly connecting the seams between calligraphy, type design, and generative typography. She is an alumna of the Type@Cooper Extended program, School for Poetic Computation, and ITP at New York University. She has previously taught for institutions such as Type@Cooper, Parsons School of Design, and The Letterform Archive. She currently runs Space Type, an NYC studio operating at the intersection of type and technology.

Scholarships and Funding

We are a fully independent organization funded by tuition fees and donations. All funds go directly towards our mission to form a more inclusive and equitable future in type and design through fair compensation, scholarship seating, and public programming.

If you are interested in supporting our mission, please consider making a one-time or ongoing donation.

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  • Type Credits: Polymode by XYZ Type