Tinkers
tail ors TYPE DESIGNERS JONATHAN BARNBROOK
JONATHAN HOEFLER
TOBIAS FRERE-JONES
Co n t e n ts Introduction
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The British Invasion
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Tinkers & Tailors
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The Typefaces
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Conclusion
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Colophon
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Works Cited
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O Intro
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On the surface English graphic designer and type designer Jonathan Barnbrook may not have a lot in common with American typographers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, but all three men are products of postmodernism and are dealing with the advantages and constraints of the digital age. Also, all three men were influenced by British typography, whether it was because
duction
of their nationality or a family connection. When you look at their approaches to their work, however,
Barnbrook can seen as an aggressive agitator, whose work often raises questions about our culture, and although Hoefler and Frere-Jones may challenged some typographic and historical conventions, they did so in much more subtle ways and have stayed away from controversy.
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It is one of the basic building blocks of design. You can’t be a good graphic designer without a thorough knowledge of typography. So those students reading this who say they find typography boring should look at changing their career.
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JONATHAN BARNBROOK
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Barnbrook [2010]
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The British inv Background & History
Jonathan Barnbrook was born in 1966 in Luton, UK. He went on to study at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. According to an interview with Design Week, Barnbrook discovered his love of typography and design “through music record covers.” He states, “The graphics gave some material physical representation to the spirit of the music.” Also in the interview, he lists literature as his major influence, including the works of Wilde and Camus. He states,
vasion
“It’s the expression of personal experience in novel form and expressing that visually in design, creating a universe that people can enter” (“Jonathan Barnbrook”). And Barnbrook’s typefaces are, if anything, are very expressive. Barnbrook founded his design studio, Barnbrook Design in 1990, and his typefaces were first released through Emigre. In 1997, he established his own font company VirusFonts.
“ It’s the expression of personal experience in novel form and expressing that visually in design, creating a universe that people can enter.”
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Four years after Barnbrook, American typographers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones were born a mere six days part, both had English mothers. Dunlap discusses their early exposure to English typefaces when he states,” For young Jonathan Hoefler, it was cans of treacle and boxes of custard mix in his mother’s kitchen on the Upper West Side. For young Tobias Frere-Jones, it was jars of marmalade and pots of mustard in his mother’s kitchen in Brooklyn. For both, it was the realization that something about the type on those labels (Gill Sans, they later learned) marked the food, with no other cues
“I had a few drinks and drew something on a bar napkin which looked like the way his band sounded. Then I went home and made a typeface out of it.”
needed, as indubitably English. And so, two type designers were born” (Dunlap). Hoefler was interested in typography very early on. He likes to joke about how he and Tobias were probably U&lc’s youngest subscribers (Dunlap). In high school he liked to draw and program computers, and in an article Hoefler states,” When the Macintosh came out in 1984, it offered me a tool to make graphic design in a way that was accessible to me as a teenager” (“Revival Of The Fittest”).
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“ We both grew up in the city and independently we’ve walked around the streets and earmarked pieces of lettering or signage that we thought would be a good seed, or starting point for a project somewhere down the line. And we both noticed the letting on the Port Authority Bus Terminal up on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. The lettering over the front door is this very plain geometric letter, but its not the type of letter that a type designer would make. It’s the kind of letter an engineer would make.”
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TOBIAS FRERE-JONES
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T The digital age gave Hoefler an opportunity to make large strides in his career very early,
compared to any another generation of type designers. Matthew Carter states, “It took me years
of apprenticeship before I actually designed my first typeface but Hoefler made his mark immediately” (“Revival Of The Fittest”). Steven Heller describes his fast ascent of his type design career when he states, “And with the ink barely dry on his high school diploma’s Old English Gothic, he was hired as a design assistant at Roger Blacks studio, where he worked on Smart magazine and
quickly graduated from lettering to type design. Two years later, craving work on book jackets and album covers, he used a letterpress
to print a promotional card pack that
featured text set in vintage typefaces and designed in period styles. Gail
Anderson at Rolling Stone immediately commissioned lettering for
feature articles, and Black and David Berlow hired him to develop and
design type at their fledgling Font
Bureau” (“Revival Of The Fittest”). He founded the Hoefler Type Foundry in 1989.
There may have been something in the water in New York City in 1970 because Tobias Frere-Jones also
became focused on graphic design
and typography at pretty early age as well. Vickers discusses how Frere-
Jones’ family exposed him to graphic design early in his development
when he states, “His father was a
New York advertising writer, and his
mother a printing coordinator, so the kid soon acquired an addiction to
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the paraphernalia of the graphic arts.” Frere-Jones grew up in a house littered with advertising layout boards and print samples. ‘’I got the idea that somebody, somewhere, has the job of deciding what these letters look like,’’ Frere-Jones said. ‘’It was like someone was designing water or designing air’’ (Dunlap). With a copywriting father who would complain about his “flaky” art director, the rebellious side of Frere-Jones entertained the idea of art direction, but he ultimately enjoyed drawing type and went to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). It was during his time at RISD that Frere-Jones had a great turning point in his study of typography. He states, “In my third year, I was broke, Christmas was coming and I needed to figure out a present for my brother who was in a band in Providence. I had a few drinks and drew something on a bar napkin which looked like the way his band sounded.
“I got the idea that somebody, somewhere, has the job of deciding what these letters look like. It was like someone was designing water or designing air’’
Then I went home and made a typeface out of it. That was his present: something he could use for the band’s commercial material.” According to Vickers, “The exercise was also an antidote to a frustrating typeface exercise that had been
taking up a lot of his time without any real success.” He was able to complete the typeface in just a couple of days. Soon after he showed typeface he created for his brother to Erik Spiekermann, and he decided to publish “the birthday thing.” In 1992, Frere-Jones graduated from RISD and moved to Boston, where he worked at the Font Bureau, a digital type foundry. It was in 1999 that Frere-Jones finally joined to Hoefler Type Foundry, and in 2004 the name of the firm changed Hoefler & Frere-Jones (Vickers).
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T i n k e r s & Ta i Philosophy & Work Process
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Barnbrook is no stranger to controversy. Heller describes Barnbrook as “A British graphic designer who practices what could be called agit-type: Many of his compositions, collected in his first monograph [...] are designed to challenge, if not agitate the reader.” He adds, “They are so deliberately kinetic and chaotic that they require time and effort to decipher” (“Words Into Type”). It’s clear that expression is very evident in Barnbrook’s work. Heller states “In fact, once they have been decoded, Barnbrook’s distinctive style can be appreciated as a personal expression in the service of mass communication, usually containing a social or political agenda” (“Words Into Type”). Deconstructionism is also a theme in Barnbrook’s type design. In an interview with Design Week he discusses how he names his designs, “It’s the basis of the way ‘deconstruction’ was interpreted in design in the 1900s. When you see letterforms there are many histories behind what you’re seeing, the illogical history of how the shapes came about, the absurdity of expressing thought through sound and then the absurd nature of expressing sound through marks on a page. Then there’s the multiple word meanings and the spirit of the age expressed not consciously through letterform but being very much in it.” One of Barnbrook’s most controversial typefaces is one
ilors
he originally named after the infamous serial killer Charles Manson, but it was later renamed Mason. Inspired by 19th century Russian letterforms, Greek architecture and renaissance bibles, the design was based on drawings made in Barnbrook’s sketchbooks. Barnbrook discusses
“A British graphic designer who practices what could be called agit-type: Many of his compositions, collected in his first monograph [...] are designed to challenge, if not agitate the reader.”
how he came to the original name when he states, “I wanted a name that would play with the way people would perceive and use these letter forms which looked very historic. However both the source of the font and the language itself are areas of extreme emotion, love, hatred and violence. It would not have been right to give it a completely placid understandable name” (81).
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I would like to say this very simply: graphic design is not just about marketing, it is not just an industry, it is a powerful tool of mass-communication, giving you the potential to communicate what you believe in to an huge amount of people.
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JONATHAN BARNBROOK
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Barnbrook [2003, Delux]
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The Typefa
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Barnbrook is known for creating expressive display and decorative post-modernist typefaces, but many of his typefaces are derived from classic letterforms, like Bastard, Exocet and Manson. He a can also be seen as a neoclassicists. His best know typeface maybe Mason, originally Manson, but he did a number of typefaces that are worth exploring. Barnbrook’s display typefaces include: Coma (2001), Delux (1997), Doctrine Stencil (sans serif, 2013), Doublethink (2006), Drone (serif, 1997), Echelon (2001), Exocet (serif, 1991), Expletive (2001), False Idol (sans serif, 1997), Hopeless Diamond (2009), Infidel (2003), Moron (2001), Newspeak (serif, 1997), Nylon/Draylon (serif, 1997), Patriot (sans serif, 1997), Priori Acute (serif, 2010), Prototype (1997), Prozac (1997), Regime (2009), Sarcastic (2007), Shock & Awe (2004) and State Machine (sans serif, 2004). His serif typefaces include: Mason Serif (1992) and Priori Serif (2003). His san serif typefaces include: Bourgeois (2005), Doctrine (2013), Manson Sans (1992), Melancholia (2001) and Priori Sans. The typefaces developed by Hoefler and Frere-Jones, are also
ces Gradually, Hoefler began to focus on the development of unconventional type families, such as his ‘dysfunctional’ Fetish. ‘You could say it’s sort of a postmodern joke on typography
expressive in their own right, and each is carefully tailored to meet a particular need. Many of their typefaces, like Gotham for GQ Magazine and Verlag for the Guggenheim Museum, were originally commissioned by a client, and then released later. Their serif typefaces include: Chronicle (2002), Mercury (1997), Requiem (1992), Hoefler Text (1991), Hoefler Titling (1996), HTF Didot (1992), Fell Type (1994), Saracen (wedge, 1992), Acropolis (beveled, 1993) and Numbers (1997). Their slab-serf typefaces included: Archer (2001), Sentinel (2009), Vitesse (2000) and Ziggurat (2000). They also have a great collection of san serif typeface designs that include: Champion Gothic (1990), Cyclone (2000), Forza (2010), Gotham (2000), Gotham Rounded (2005), Ideal Sans (1991), Idlewild (2002), Knockout (1994), Landmark (2000), Leviathan (1991), Topaz (2000), Tungsten (2004), Verlag (formerly Guggenheim, 1996) and Whitney (1996).
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t C o n cl us ion
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t
Expression can be seen in the works of all three designers, and they were all influenced the digital age and the development of font software programs that aide in type design. Heller best sums up how technology has shaped typography when states,
“But with the computer, ‘font’ has entered the vernacular, and almost every keyboard jockey has become an aficionado. In this context typography has taken center stage, increasingly more art than craft, and many artful (and artless) typographical compositions are filing galleries and museums. These days, type has become something, shall we say, of an experience” (“Words into Type”). Jonathan Barnbrook can be seen creating typefaces that seek to evoke emotion and in a very contemporary sense. He sought to create work that examined our culture, particularly the monarchy, and globalization. We can see this in many of his type designs, like Exocet. And in more subtle ways the work of Hoefler & Frere-Jones plays with different conventions, but they are best know for tailoring beautiful and well-thought out designs commissioned by and for a client. Their typefaces are crafted with the intent of fitting the client perfectly.
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I don’t think a new type has to have any fealty to the historical continuum to be good.
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JONATHAN HOEFLER
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Feltron [2010, Tungsten & Gotham]
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Co l oph o n Designer: FRED LAMECK Photography: Barnbrook, Jonathan (page 4: Barnbrook, 17th Biennale of Sydney, page 17: Why Use Bombs, When You Can Destroy Them With Your Brands Instead?); Buccino, Anthony (page 11, Port Authority Bus Terminal; Grimes, Justin (page 21: 2010 Feltron Annual Report); Kassner, Gerhard (page 16, Barnbrook); Leinster, Troy (page 9: Hoefler & Frere-Jones, page 20: Hoefler); Spooner, Adam (page 10: Frere-Jones); and typotalks.com (page 7: Barnbrook). Typefaces: Echelon, Exocet, Gotham and Ideal Sans. Project: Typographers Book Design Typography 3 Francheska Guerrero Corcoran College of Art + Design
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Wo r k s c i t ed Barnbrook, Jonathan. Barnbrook Bible: The Graphic Design of Jonathan Barnbrook. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2007. Print. “Creative Characters Interview with Jonathan Barnbrook.” MyFonts.com. N.p., Oct. 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. Dunlap, David W. “2 Type Designers, Joining Forces and Faces.” New York Times: 0. Oct 19 2004. ProQuest. Web. 7 Oct. 2013 Heller, Steven. “Words into Type.” New York Times Book Review Sept. 09 2007: 18,7.18. ProQuest. Web. 7 Oct. 2013 . Heller, Stephen. “Revival Of The Fittest.” Print 52.6 (1998): 76-81. Art Source. Web. 8 Oct. 2013. “Jonathan Barnbrook.” Design Week (2009): 9. Art Source. Web. 7 Oct. 2013. “Questions & Answers.” Barnbrook Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. Russoff, Michael. “Friendly Fire: The Graphic Design Of Jonathan Barnbrook.” Crafts (0306610X) 208 (2007): 72-73. Art Source. Web. 7 Oct. 2013. Vickers, Graham. “Highway Man.” Creative Review 18.5 (1998): 65-66. Art Source. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.
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