Type design is a centuries-old discipline, but the resources to accelerate its study are often geographically distant, out of print, or simply scattered in tiny bits all over the internet. Sol Matas and Nicole Dotin started Practica to create a rigorous, supportive environment in which to study type design no matter where you are in the world, and regardless of whether your city is type-rich like Sol’s (hello, Berlin) or relatively type-poor like Nicole’s (sorry, Minneapolis). The choice to be online was deliberate: we want our corner of typographic expertise to be globally available and accessible to more people.

Nicole and Sol met while organizing Alphacrit, an online type critique Nicole launched on the Alphabettes platform. After organizing together for more than a year, the pair started dreaming up Practica as a means of realizing their shared goal of helping others gain access to the world of type design. Practica has been teaching students since 2020.