Category Archives: Event

“Sublime & crazy tales”: a new immersive typography workshop

An immersive, interactive journey through how typography changed the world. There will be activities, tasters, smells, sounds, stories and surprises. These are unique experiences that change what you think, feel and do.

I really enjoyed opening the doors and chatting to so many people at our recent open studios. After two years spent online feeling like I was living a cross between The Truman Show and Max Headroom, it’s been so good to create and host in-person events again. One of my favourite reasons is that I get to create props, smells and tasters designed to surprise unsuspecting audiences.

I’ve spent today making props for an event I’m running at the HQ of the Future Strategy Club for their members next week. This is an immersive, interactive journey through how typography changed the world. There will be activities, tasters, smells, sounds, stories and surprises. We’ll time travel through a few hundred years of type history getting a first hand taste of protest movements, pampleteers, social shifts and revolutions.

This is based on an event I created for the London Design Festival, which attendees described as “An immersive experience of storytelling and discovery”, “Brilliant”, “Sublime & crazy tales from the past”, “Wonderful”, “A roaring success”.

Get in touch here or by replying to this email if you’d like to book this event for your clients or organisation.

Live at the London Transport Museum

I’m delighted that live, in-person events are happening again after a very long break. It’s wonderful to be in the same room as all of you with the collective energy, banter and all those random post-event conversations. I’ve especially missed those.

Recently I spoke at the incredibly inspiring TBD evening at Fora (you can see how happy I was to be there). Tonight I’ll be live at the London Transport Museum for a fun evening of Fontastical Games as part of their After Dark series. This will be part gameshow and part quiz. It’s heavily influenced by my love of 1970s gameshows full of laughter and things that will inevitably go wrong.

Roll up roll up for an evening of fonts, letters and signs. Can you guess the tube station from the font clues? Will you spot the real sign from the fake? Shout along with typography karaoke. Play along with font charades. And we’ll end with the classic lost property conveyor belt game.

You’ll have the chance to win spot prizes of my books and a set of Hidden London virtual tour tickets.

Friday 12th November
Fontastical Games at the London Transport Museum After Dark
6.30–9pm, £10/£12
Come along and join me

Fantastical Fonts with Sarah Hyndman: online live events

🔊Listen to the audio version

Not-to-be-missed interactive, funny and fantastical live events. Sarah’s on a mission to make typography exciting for everybody by inviting you to take part in games and demonstrations so you can make the discoveries for yourself.

Come along to this fun and irreverent online event with author Sarah Hyndman. Join in with games from her bestselling book Why Fonts Matter. She’ll answer as many of your questions as possible, no questions are too silly or too strange!

Ideal for beginners, students and anybody curious about reading fonts. We’re all font consumers in our everyday lives. Sarah will show you that you’re already an expert, even if you don’t realise it.

WHO’S THAT FONT?
Tuesday 14th September, 7pm to 8pm (BST)
Do fonts have personalities? Which would you date, ditch or just be friends with? What does a font reveal about your personality?

DO FONTS SMELL?
Tuesday 28th September 7pm to 8pm (BST)
What might different fonts smell like and what memories do they evoke? Can a font make your jellybean taste different? How do fonts interact with all your senses?
Bring a matching pair of jellybeans for an experiment.
£1.99 per person, only 25 tickets.
Book here

Once you’ve purchased your ticket you’ll be sent the Zoom details. Please tell your friends, let’s have some fun.

Are you ready to immerse yourself in the fantastical world of fonts?

About your host
Sarah Hyndman demystifies the amazing world of typography. She is the author of Why Fonts Matter. She is a TEDx speaker, a regular on radio (BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth with Michael Rosen, Saturday Live, Today.) and TV (Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch). Sarah is a multisensory typography expert and collaborates on studies with Professor Charles Spence of the University of Oxford.

8 proven tips for creating brilliant online events

Since April 2020 I’ve created and hosted more than 50 online events and I’ve been joined by so many people from countries around the world. This has given me the opportunity to really find out what works and how to create a brilliant online event. Here are 8 proven tips you can use to transform your online event from average to “magnificent”*.

1. Make the decision to create an event and not a webinar.

Decide at the outset whether you’re creating an event or a webinar. A webinar is a passive experience for viewers as their cameras and microphones are off, whereas an event invites active participation.

2. Embrace the live event experience.

Imagine that you’re gathering a group of people together in real life. Make it clear from the outset that you’d like cameras on and explain that this is because it’s a social event and you’d like everybody to feel like they’re in the same room together.

3. Build interactivity into the event.

I invite people to respond in the chat box and, when appropriate, to turn on their microphones and talk. With a really large audience I find it’s amazing to see the stream of chat comments responding to what I’m saying, or with exclamations like “wow” and “haha”. This really connects me to the ripples of audience reactions so I can gauge the response as I would with an in-person audience.

4. Make the interactivity inclusive.

I think it’s important for everybody to feel seen and heard but not uncomfortable. I’m not a fan of cheesy games that make people feel silly or quizzes that feel more like an exam. I like my audience to feel smart and that they’ve learned something new during an event. For example, I might ask what kind of music a Gothic-style letter on a record cover suggests — everybody then gets to compare their answers with each other and to have fun discovering that there are lots of different associations.

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Online Christmas and New Year office parties

Are you looking for a refreshing virtual Christmas or New Year party for your company?

Are you fed up with Zoom quizzes and cheesy online games? Would you like a smart, fun and memorable office party that “captures peoples imagination and immerses everyone in the whole experience”?

Author Sarah Hyndman creates brilliant events for company Christmas parties & New Year socials, hosted live on Zoom for participants anywhere in the world. Office party events combine booze, storytelling, humour, history, labels, non-cheesy interaction, interesting and useless facts. The G&T event includes a multi-sensory demonstration based on Sarah’s published research.

You’ll get a BYO menu of easy-to-source items so you and your team can drink along together. Events are broadcast live from the Type Tasting studio in an old Victorian chocolate factory in East London.

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Typographic synaesthesia experience session

Typographic synaesthesia experience session

A fantastical multisensory online event designed to stimulate all your senses

As featured in Design Week’s Picks of the Month.

Take part in a fun session with games and find out about some of Sarah’s research as you discover first-hand how the appearance of the words you read interacts with all of your senses.

Suitable for all, no experience needed and you can join this virtual session from anywhere in the world.

This is not just a font, it’s also an idea, a smell, a song, a memory, a feeling, a personality, a warning, a taste…

Discover for yourself how the different shapes and styles of the typefaces that you read every day trigger responses in your brain that link to all of your senses.

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“A roaring success”, “so unexpected but in all the right ways!”

We ran an exciting preview of the brand new Wine & Type Tasting event for 30 ambassadors from the Bankside Design District. We had a brilliant time and the evening was pronounced “a roaring success”. Favourite quotes included “so unexpected but in all the right ways!” and “lots of sublime and crazy tall tales from the past”.

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Wine and Type Tasting evening

Do you Judge a Wine by its Label?
Arrange a Wine & Type Tasting evening for your team and clients
By Sarah Hyndman

We will bring this innovative type and wine tasting, based on the sell-out success at the London Design Festival, to you for your team and clients. Take part in a series of activities and games that will delight and inform, in a relaxed and social setting.

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Wine and Type Tasting event photos

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By Sarah Hyndman

Do You Judge a Wine by its Label?
Would you like us to host a wine & type tasting for your Christmas do? Find out more.

We had a fantastic Wine and Type Tasting event at Laithwaite’s Arch with Bankside Design District for the London Design Festival. Here is a glimpse of the evening, all the photos are by David Owens. There will be a second tasting on Tuesday 27th September and a Christmas one is planned on 8th December. Find out more here. 

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“Surprising and very interesting” Richard, “Fascinating” Cherry, “Illuminating” Piers, “Intriguing” Clare, “Very different but rewarding” Lee, “Fun and informative” Sara, “Really interesting! Surprisingly scientific” Rachael, “It was fabulous, surprising and delicious!” Syd.

“More than an excuse for weeknight drinking, wine was a clever example of the influence of typeface … don’t worry; you don’t need to be a typography nerd” Digital Arts

“It was certainly an eye-opener to realise that so much of what we taste is influenced by our other senses” SEEN London

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Wine and Type Tasting with Sarah Hyndman   Wine and Type Tasting with Sarah Hyndman   Wine and Type Tasting with Sarah Hyndman

 

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Typographic Time Machine collection at the V&A

Typographic Time Machine workshop at the V&A #TimeType

Typographic Time Machine workshop at the V&A #TimeType Typographic Time Machine workshop at the V&A #TimeType

By Sarah Hyndman

The Typographic Time Machine collection popped up at the V&A at the weekend and we filled the space with amazing letters. A full blog post will come soon (after the festival has ended), meanwhile here is a glimpse of what happened.

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