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ince graduating in with distinction in graphic design from Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, Jonathan Barnbrook has developed a multifaceted practice that includes activism, graphic design, typeface design, industrial design and motion graphics. Barnbrook founded his design studio, Barnbrook Design in 1990. His typefaces were originally released through Californian innovators Emigre. In 2010, his most famous typeface ‘Mason’ released by Emigre became one of the first digital acquisitions of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Additionally his stone-carving is on permanent display of the 20th century gallery in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1997 he established his own font company VirusFonts, releasing well-known fonts such as ‘Bastard’ and ‘Tourette’. In 2007, his contribution to British graphic design was recognised with a major retrospective exhibition at the Design Museum in London entitled ‘Friendly Fire’. A monograph of his work ‘Barnbrook Bible’ was simultaneously published by BoothClibborn Editions. In 2008 he was given an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University for services to typography. During 2009, the exhibition ‘Collateral Damage’ presented a retrospective of Jonathan Barnbrook’s more political design output, and travelled to multiple countries including France, Slovenia and Croatia.
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Love Music Love Food Identity for UK based music charity associated with Teenage Cancer Trust.
Adbusters reissued the First things First manifesto in 1999, originally written by Ken Garland it asked designers to question the value of the work they do and who they work for. Of all the things I have done it’s generates the most questions, usually prompted by absolute cynicism about why it was released. I think the most important thing to realise is that a manifesto is a starting point, a statement of intention. Nobody was expecting to change the world with it, what we did want to do though was get people to discuss where graphic design was heading, and to do it in the mainstream design press. I think that it achieved this very successfully, particularly in the USA where this discussion had been completely marginalised when designers became all starry-eyed about working for the new ‘cool’ multinationals. One aspect that did disappoint me was that the people who signed it didn’t take it any further as a group after. I do think we could have got a lot of momentum going because it was widely discussed. What we could have achieved I don’t know but
it was certainly more than just writing a manifesto. 3
We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best. Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizenconsumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design. In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.
First Things First Manifesto 2000 Jonathan Barnbrook Nick Bell Andrew Blauvelt Hans Bockting Irma Boom Sheila Levrant de Bretteville Max Bruinsma Siân Cook Linda van Deursen Chris Dixon William Drenttel Gert Dumbar Simon Esterson Vince Frost Ken Garland Milton Glaser Jessica Helfand Steven Heller Andrew Howard Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy Zuzana Licko Ellen Lupton Katherine McCoy Armand Mevis J. Abbott Miller Rick Poynor Lucienne Roberts Erik Spiekermann Jan van Toorn Teal Triggs Rudy VanderLans Bob Wilkinson
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How would you recommend What makes that people learn about a good typographer? typography?
Absolutely it is about attention to detail first, that is what separates good typographers and designers from the average ones. It’s how you can aid proper comprehension of information, not how pretty you can make something look. Its very easy to see if someone is a good typographer because when they send you
Pressurise their tutors to teach it or go to the library and learn about it yourself, I do get quite annoyed with students who expect this kind of thing to be given to them, passive people are not good designers. The best designers will naturally learn everything about a subject because they are interested in it.
their portfolio they will have cared about how they have set their contact details and crafted the captions. You will be surprised about the amount of students who don’t even know how to use basic punctuation, which is essential if you are a typographer.
Your library may have useful books – the important thing is to stick at it – as your work will benefit because of it. If your not really interested you’re not going to explore the subject in any depth.
You seem to put a lot of emphasis on Why is the name of typography a typeface, Do you hate important? why is this? Helvetica?
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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It is very important, in the past a typeface would take years so it was almost a life’s work. Therefore people would often use their surname. There was also the ‘Letraset’ school of naming which was to name after a visual pun to do with the typeface... The name can be throwaway; last for a moment, but it can also have
When I was younger I had a problem with it, but then I thought I was fighting some kind of battle with Modernism, it seemed such a dull way to interpret the world. Modernism, from being a socialist/ utopian-based movement had become the opposite, in with the capitalists. That battle is kind of over now though which is both
many different layers. The name ‘Bastard’ for instance I thought about a lot. The typeface is a blackletter (or gothic) font. It has strong associations with Fascism. It would have been silly to ignore this, even though blackletter has a large place in the history of typography, most people would associate it with the Nazis so it was a chance to almost ‘laugh’ at that. But if you bother to look further into the name, you will know that there is a 14–15th Century form of blackletter called ‘Bastarda’ or that putting the ‘wrong font’ in a piece of letterpress setting is called ‘bastard type’. All I am trying to say is that naming a font is incredibly important. There is a tension there, which can be played with.
good and bad. It’s actually very difficult today to be certain about anything. I am surprised that it doesn’t result in more design paralysis when I sit down and work. Wait… actually I do hate Helvetica, I hate design groups who try and make something look ‘cool’ by using Helvetica light, its so boring. I also hate a phrase that a few of my art teachers used to say occasionally which was ‘when in doubt use Helvetica’ it is such a lifeless way of looking at typography. Of course I appreciate its role in design history and the drawing that went into the actual letterforms, but there is so much energy, culture and excitement in other fonts.
17th Biennale of Sydney Expansive identity for Australia’s biggest contemporary art festival.
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don’t think you’re better than anybody else 9
What was the first thing you thought about when you woke up this morning? How tired I am, I was working until 2.30am trying to finish off various things for my exhibition.
What do you have for breakfast? I have a fresh fruit smoothie. When I turned 40, I decided it was time to change my life. I wanted to become healthier, given most of the men in my family die of a heart attack at around 60. So I changed my diet and started exercising properly.
How do you get to work? By public transport or sometimes I run. I don’t own a car as I don’t want to contribute to global warming and there’s definitely no need for one in London.
What time do you first check your inbox? Usually at 8.00am before I leave for work. Design is a service industry and I work worldwide hence I’m ‘on call’ like a doctor 24 hours a day.
Do you listen to music whilst you work? If so, what are you listening to at the moment? I think it’s important to listen to music and have a relaxed atmosphere where you work. At the moment I’m listening to the next album by a band called Tuxedomoon. I was really into them when I was younger, and now I have the chance to design their next album cover, which is very satisfying. They’re avant-garde electro-pop.
What do you think is the most overrated virtue? Being patriotic because it’s just embarrassing. I don’t mean you shouldn’t be proud of your own culture, just don’t think you’re better than anybody else.
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Is there any single person that particularly inspires you? Mahatma Gandhi because he changed the world through a belief in non-violence. If some of the politicians in the world today followed his example then I’m sure much more could be achieved.
Where do you feel most inspired? On a long train journey. One of the best trips of my life was going on the Trans-Siberian Express. I felt like I had space to think, which I don’t normally get, so I set myself tasks, like “think of all of the things that happened in your first year at school” or “think of each room in your house when you were twelve”. It was a great thing to be able to do.
How do you switch off? As with all creative people, what I do is not a like a job so it’s not like I view my work as some kind of heavy task. It’s a joy to be able to be creative and have people interested in it. Hence I never really switch off...
What did you want to be when you were a child? Even though I came from a working class family, I always wanted to do something related to art or literature. At the time I didn’t even know if there was a way to spend your life working in those fields.
Is there anything about retirement you look forward to? I won’t retire so I don’t think about it. I intend to do what I do until I drop. I wouldn’t want to sit around feeling like my usefulness to society had ended.
If you could choose to come back as person or thing, who or what would it be? I rather like what Bob Geldof said about this, which was something along the lines of, ‘I don’t want to be me, but then I don’t particularly want to be anybody else either’. I’m sure a lot of people reading this will identify with that awkward feeling of existence.
interviews edu.barnbrook.net & Wallpaper Magazine images barnbrook.net, edu.barnbrook.net &