What will I need?
Are classes recorded?
Classes are held live via Zoom. Lectures are recorded and available to rewatch for three months after your course ends, whether you miss a class or simply want to review the material.
Feedback sessions, on the other hand, are not recorded and must be attended live. Make up feedback sessions are at the discretion of the instructor.
What language are classes held in?
All sessions are conducted in English.
What are my payment options?
We accept the following forms of payment in US currency:
By special arrangement, we can also accept bank transfers from most countries.
Do you offer payment plans?
A payment plan is available for Latin Two and Devanagari Two, for those paying by credit card or PayPal. You’ll have the option to pay in four monthly installments, with an additional $100 added to the total tuition payment.
Why is tuition on a sliding scale?
Our sliding scale operates on the honor system and means that students decide which tier they can afford. Our hope is to offer reduced tuition to some students that might otherwise take the form of something like scholarships or grants. But instead of us defining criteria that conform to our own definition of “need” (maybe we get it right, maybe we don’t), we want you, the student, to make that determination. It’s your choice, on your terms.
In order for this to work, not everyone can pay only the lowest tier. If that happened, Practica would eventually be underfunded and unable to continue. If you have the means to select the higher tuition tiers, we encourage you to do so. Not only will you be helping Practica become a sustainable platform, but you’ll also be helping others access a unique educational experience.
Refund policies
Courses paid in full at the time of enrollment
If you withdraw 7 days before a course’s start date, you will receive a full tuition refund less 15%. After that time, all payments are non-refundable.
Courses with deposits
Tuition deposits, the first payment for installment plans, or 25% of the total course fee if tuition was paid upfront, are all non-refundable. If you withdraw 14 days before a course’s start date, you will receive a refund of any payments made up to the point of your withdrawal (with the exception of any deposits). After that time, all payments are non-refundable.
Any request to cancel your enrollment in a course must be received in writing to hello@practicaprogram.com.
In the unlikely event that we cancel a course for any reason, payments made up to the point of cancellation will be fully refunded.
Daylight savings time
Daylight savings time may affect the start times of your class, depending on your location. For a constant reference, we use Central European time as the basis for our class start times.
For students in a CET timezone, their class start times will never change. A student in the USA, on the other hand, will experience one week where their class start time changes by an hour because time has shifted in Europe before it does in America. Compare your country’s time change practises against CET to figure out whether you are affected or not.
What is interpolation, what are masters?
It’s like magic, but for typefaces. Seriously though … When applied to typefaces, interpolation is a mathematical means of creating intermediate instances from two or more sets of data. “Data,” in this case, refers to a weight or style of a typeface.
For example, imagine you’ve drawn a thin and bold weight of a typeface and plan to create regular and medium weights too. Instead of drawing the regular and medium by hand, you could use the data you already have (the thin and bold) and let the computer automagically figure out the drawings for the regular and medium. The automagic part is interpolation.
The thin and bold in this case are called masters. They represent the two weights that the other weights (or “instances,” in interpolation land) are based on. To interpolate, a typeface must have at least two masters drawn — but it can have more than two masters as well. Creating new weights is a very typical use of interpolation, but it can also be used for width, slant, or more imaginative axes.
When is the next time I can take this course?
Courses generally run once a year. If the timing of a class doesn’t work for you, your next chance to take it again will be in roughly one year from the start of the course.
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