Ken Barber, type director and principal letterer at digital font foundry House Industries of Yorklyn, Delaware, will be coming to The University of Akron Feb. 29 and March 1 for a public lecture and special workshop for junior and senior graphic design students.

Barber has a particular interest in the role that hand-lettering and typography play in contemporary graphic design. As a visiting artist in the Myers Artist in Residence Program, Barber will present a free public lecture on the Histories of House Industries at 8 p.m. in the auditorium of Folk Hall (150 E. Exchange St.) on Friday, Feb. 29, at UA’s Mary Schiller Myers School of Art.

Ken Barber’s work is part of the collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and has been honored by the New York Type Directors Club. He teaches lettering and typography at Maryland Institute College of Art and lectures internationally on the subjects. Barber is also the coauthor of House (Die Gestalten Verlag, 2003), a compendium of House Industries work, and he manages http://www.typeandlettering.com, a developing online letter arts resource.

During the residency, Barber will conduct a half-day workshop on Sat., March 1, “Goin’ Stag: The Allure of the Lone Letter in Design” where participants will turn pencil drawings into distinctive stand-alone signets according to a few lettering basics and type standards.