Anton Corbijn & Avenir by Nicole Phillips

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Anton Corbijn & Avenir The Life & Work of Anton Corbijn told Alongside the History, Importance, & Usage of the Typeface, Avenir

Nicole Phillips 2016 Boston, Massachussetts

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

InDesign

Type

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Software

Avenir, Avenir Light, Avenir Book, Avenir Roman, Avenir Oblique, Avenir Bold, Avenir Black, Avenir Heavy, Avenir Next Regular, Avenir Next Light, Avenir Next Ultra Light, Palentino

Photographs All photographs were taken by Anton Corbijn.

Sources “Adrian Frutiger | History of Graphic Design.” Adrian Frutiger | History of Graphic Design. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. “Anton Corbijn Biography.” Anton Corbijn Biography. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. “Anton Corbijn.” Famous Photographers. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. “Everythingavenir.” Avenir. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. “Typedia.” Avenir. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. Bengal, Rebecca. “Anton Corbijn’s Iconic Music Portraits Are on View at the Hague Museum of Photography.” Vogue. 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. Corbijn, Anton. Anton Corbijn - Star Trak. München: Schirmer/Mosel, 2002. Print. Moakley, Paul. “The Secret Behind Anton Corbijn’s Signature Photography Look.” Time. Time, 10 Nov. 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Anton Corbijn & Avenir Acknowledgements & Introduction This book is dedicated to the great talents of Anton Corbijn as well as the commendable work of Adrian Frutiger in designing the Avenir typeface. Corbijnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outstanding photos have inspired the entire book and made for a great environment to introduce elements of Avenirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s characteristics. Together, the two narratives run side by side throughout.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Anton Corbijn Anton Corbijn is a Dutch film and music video director and a photographer born on 20th May, 1955. For three decades, he did promotional and cover photography for musical bands, U2 and Depeche Mode. His younger brother Maarten Corbijn is a director and photographer and his Grandfather was an art teacher, where as his father worked for the church and his mother was a nurse. Left: Anton Corbijn

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Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Avenir r i n e v A Avenir The Design

Avenir was designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by Linotype-Hell AG in 1988. The design is based on two earlier sans serif typefaces, Erbar and Futura. Frutiger has described Avenir as a geometric sans serif with a human touch, unlike the cold mechanical flavor of Futura. Avenir is unusual in that it has weights that are similar, but each is designed for a different purpose.

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slightly varied stroke weights bring it a little more back down to earth compared to Futura’s thick and blocky letter forms. The style does reflect the name in the sense that it feels modern and clean, however the “humanization” of the style makes just enough of a difference for this font to be acceptable for body type, while Futura, in some cases, should be avoided.

humanized

It favors a lot of the stylistic qualities of Futura, however the

humanized

have a more organic feel to be more humanized than it’s processors.

humanized

Although it is considered to be geometric, Frutiger wanted Avenir to

humanized

Humanization

humanized

humanized humanized

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

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Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard was born on 20 May 1955 in Strijen in the Netherlands, where his father had been appointed as parson to the Dutch Reformed Church the previous year. His father, Anton Corbijn van

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Life & Family

Willenswaard (1917–2007), took up the same position in Hoogland (1966) and Groningen (1972), moving his wife and four children with him. His mother, Marietje Groeneboer (1925–2011), was a nurse and was raised in a parson’s family. Photographer and director Maarten Corbijn born 1960) is a younger brother. Grandfather Anton Johannes (Corbijn) van Willenswaard (1886–1959) was an art teacher at Christian schools in Hilversum and an active member in the local Dutch Reformed Church in Hilversum. Right: Bon Jovi, John Lee’s hand

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Herman Brood When Corbijn saw Herman Brood, a musician playing in Groningenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cafĂŠ, he became interested in doing photography for the world of music and this was the year when he started photography. He took many photographs of Brood and as a result Corbijn became increasingly exposed, in a good way.

Right: Anton Corbijn Left: Herman Brood

Following this, in 1974 he joined a one and half year photography course. After this, he worked for Gijabert Hanekroot as an assistant in Amsterdam. In 1976, he decided to work independently and later for a while became the head photographer for OOR, a Dutch magazine for pop music.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Different Weights The Light and Book weights are similar, but Book is most appropriate for text blocks while the Light is better for adding a contrasting element (perhaps a heading) to a heavier weight. These weight selections also allow for optimal results under varied printing conditions. Use the bold and extra bold weights of Avenir for emphasis with the light, book, and medium weights.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir 5

'The quality of the draughtsmanship, rather than the intellectual idea behind it, is my masterpiece. It was the hardest typeface I have worked on in my life. Working on it, I always had human nature in mind. And what's crucial is that I developed the typeface alone, in peace and quiet no drafting assistants, no-one was there. My personality is stamped upon it. I'm proud that I was able to create Avenir.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Adrian Frutiger

In 1979, he went to London and there he worked with New Musical Express (NME). He was in association with NME till 1985. Corbijn loved music and photography. He photographed celebrities, such as Tom Waits, David Bowie, Miles Davis, Joy Divi-

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Music and Photography

sion, Elvis Costello, Stephen Hawking, Kim Wilde, Björk, The Cramps, Clint Eastwood, Simple Minds, Herbert Grönemeyer, Prāta Vētra, Morrissey, and many others. Right: Clint Eastwood

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Moving to Motion Anton Corbijn began directing music videos in 1983. He has directed videos, such as Do I Have to Say the Words by Bryan Adams, Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana. In 2010, he directed the film, The American starring George Clooney. He has directed more than 60 videos and photographed for 100 album sleeves. He has taken pictures for the album covers of Nick Cave, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, The Killers, R.E.M., Moke, Saybia, The Bee Gees, Bon Jovi, and Therapy.

autobiography, Frutiger explains that this was a response to the effects of how people perceive colour. He intended the slightly bolder designs for white-on-black text, so they would look the same to a viewer as black-on-white. While similarities can be seen with Futura, the two-storey lowercase a is more like Erbar, and also recalls Frutigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s earlier namesake typeface, Frutiger. Frutiger considers Avenir his finest work.

frutiger

together, with the difference barely distinguishable. In his

frutiger

The original release of Avenir has weights grouped very close

frutiger

Frutigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Finest

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Right: Adrian Frutiger Left: Nirvana

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Crowning Works His photographs of Miles Davis, David Bowie, and Captain Beefheart are notorious worldwide. Post 1985, he produced works for magazines, like Esquire, Stern, W, Rolling Stone, and Elle. Corbijn is the most recognized portraitist in the music industry as well as in the media industry encompassing all artistic fields. He has shot portraits of Kate Moss, Quentin Tarantino, Dennis Hopper, Michael Stipe, William S. Burroughs, Wim Wenders, Steven Spielberg, Martin

1988 Scorsese, and several others.

First Release

The word avenir is French for â&#x20AC;&#x153;futureâ&#x20AC;?. The font takes inspiration

from the early geometric sans-serif typefaces Erbar made in 1922, designed by Jakob Erbar, and Futura made in 1927, designed by

Paul Renner. Frutiger intended Avenir to be a more organic, humanist interpretation of these highly geometric types.

Avenir was originally released in 1988 with three weights, each

with a roman and oblique version, and used Frutiger's two-digit

weight and width convention for names: 45 book, 46 book oblique, 55 text weight, 56 text weight oblique, (75)85 heavy, and (76)86 heavy oblique. The typeface family was later expanded to six weights, each with a roman and an oblique version.

Left: Miles Davis Right: Michael Stipe

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Awarding Moments For his work, Corbijn won two awards by MTV for Heart Shaped Box, a music video by Nirvana. In 1994, he made a short film, Some YOYO Stuff for BBC .

aven ave

Left: David Bowie (both)

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

nir next enir next Making a New Member

Between 2004â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2007, Frutiger, together with Linotype's in-house

The glyph set was expanded to include small caps, text figures, sub-

type designer Akira Kobayashi, reworked the Avenir family to

script and superscripts, and ligatures. Two extra font weights, light

address on-screen display issues. The result was titled Avenir Next.

and thin, were added to the font for the release of Avenir Next W1G,

The initial release of the typeface family was increased to 24 fonts:

for a total of 32 fonts. This release also added Greek and Cyrillic

six weights, each with a roman and italic version, in two widths,

glyphs in the regular width only.

normal and condensed. Frutigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s numbering system was abandoned in favor of more conventional weight names.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

New Work From 1998 until 2000, he worked with Marlene Dumas, a painter, on a project titled Stripping Girls. Amsterdamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s peep shows and strip clubs were the subject of

aaaaaaa aaaaa aaaaa a this series.

Left: Henry Rollins Right: Avenir Next â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Ultra Light to Heavy

Avenir Family Members The current set of weights is therefore ultra light, thin, light, regular, medium, demi bold, bold and heavy, in four styles each (two widths and italics for each width). The installation on OS X does not include the thin and light weights, but does include Greek and Cyrillic glyphs in the regular width.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

U2 U2 U2 U2 U2

When Corbijn met U2 on their first US

Music was Anton Corbijn’s first love. The

He asked his father if he could borrow his

tour, Bono had only one request: “Make me

son of a Protestant minister, he was socially

camera. This allowed him the freedom to

look tall, skinny, intelligent, with a sense of

awkward and somewhat shy as a boy. “He

get to the stage without feeling like people

humor,” to which Corbijn replied, “So, you

always sort of withdrew into his own co-

would be staring. After getting the images

want to look like me.” Corbijn’s relationship

coon,” his sister recalls. However, he found

developed he sent them off to a magazine,

with U2 is not only one of his longest-run-

an escape in music. He wasn’t a musician,

and, to his surprise, they published them.

ning creative collaborations, it’s also one of

just an amateur drummer who loved to

That was the moment that changed his life.

his most prolific and well-known, yielding

listen. During the summer of 1972, when

Photography became a way for him to gain

album covers for The Unforgettable Fire,

he was 16, his family moved to the small

access to concerts of the bands he loved.

Rattle and Hum, The Joshua Tree and Ach-

Dutch town of Groningen. He heard about

It was an excuse for him to get closer to

tung Baby as well as several music videos,

a local concert in a park. Having no friends

the stage. “I really wanted to become part

including One. Corbjin was responsible for

in this new area, he wanted to attend, but

of that world,” Corbijn says, “Gradually, I

much of the creative direction behind early

didn’t want to go alone and draw attention

developed a love for photography itself.”

times of the U2 group.

to himself.

Left: U2 Right: Bono

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Black & White

U2 31

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Janna Typeface Janna is an Arabic variant designed by Nadine Chahine, based on the original Avenir. Janna, which means â&#x20AC;&#x153;heavenâ&#x20AC;? in Arabic, was first designed in 2004 as a signage face for the American University of Beirut. The Arabic glyphs are based on the previously released Frutiger Arabic, but were made more angular. Two roman fonts, in regular and bold weights, were produced. The typeface supports ISO Adobe 2, Latin Extended, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu characters, and tabular numerals for the supported languages.

12 12345 123456789!@ #$ 1234567 15

1234 56789!@ #

He regularly contributed his work to a punk style magazine on music, known as The Face. He was famous for his black and white photos. In 1989, he started doing color photography and tried the technique of using filters for Sioxsie Sioux, an English

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Black & White

song writer and singer. In a novel by William Gibson, titled Spook Country, the author has referred to Corbijnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s portrait of Henry Rollins.

3456 789! @#$% ^ & *() 5678 9! @#$% ^&* ( ) $% ^ &* ( ) 89!@ # $% ^&* ( ) $% ^ &* ( )

Left: U2 Right: U2, Bono

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Unique Style Corbijnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s style of photography gives a raw look than a glamorous one to his subjects. In the late 20th century, his style of producing black and white photos using grainy films became an important part of the visual culture and was copied greatly. The photoshoot to the right was taken in

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1995 by Anton Corbijn of Johnny Depp. Corbijn using a traditional lith photography approach. It is a very specific black and white printing process that make good shots look great and bad shots terrible. A lot of photographers had experimented with this process.

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Versatility The great thing about Avenir is itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s versatility. It can be used for

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

NOP op

headlines and display type, or it makes a perfectly fine body type. A lot of times, it can be used as an accent font to other display fonts because it is stylistic but versatile at the same time. Personally, I always use Avenir as a default for writing papers and deciding body type in design until something better comes to me. Compared to Helvetica, the most neutral typeface of all time, Avenir has a bit more of a younger and modern feel. Oftentimes Helvetica is seen as too neutral and boring in certain designs, so that is where Avenir comes into play. It is the middleman between the extreme neutralism of Helvetica and the high modernism of Futura. Left: Johnny Depp Right: Johnny Depp

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Anton Corbijn & Avenir

More Than Rock & Roll Although his subjects include some of the most famous musicians of the past four decades, the work of Dutch artist Anton Corbijn, on view the summer of 2015 at the Hague Museum of Photography in the just-extended major retrospective “1-2-34,” are far removed from the kind of big

John

production typical of large-scale rock-’n’-roll portraits.

Strictly modern and at the same time humane. Avenir is indeed, a modernistic humanist Sans typeface that stood the test of time,

nny Depp especially amidst the development of typographic design in the 20th century where significant changes in reprographic technologies is

evident: The arrival of computerised typography revolutionised type design which thereafter lead to the advancement of digital software to the provision of design, marketing, and distribution of

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Modernistic Humanist

typographic products.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Left: Rolling Stone, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger Right: Mick Jagger

Masks & Costumes Shot on film, and most often in black and white, Corbijn’s pictures have more in common with street and documentary photography. They feel raw and ad hoc and vérité and intimate—unmasked, one might say, except for the fact that Corbijn frequently puts his subjects in actual masks, hats, and other costumes. His photographs are gritty and carnival-esque, belonging to a real yet surreal time and place of their

own: A London street scene in Fellini’s Cinecittà, maybe.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

mick

kcim 41

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Wider Range of Context Besides that, the requirements of the Internet have also created a sea of change in the typographic scene where digital design and on-screen information are in demand. As a Humanist Sans typeface, Avenir is influential across a wider range of contexts, just like any of its distinguished ancestors,

RH namely Futura and Kabel. It can be used for display and body text, and is also effective as an on-screen face. Furthermore, its ideal

has been expressed through a variety of distinct and highly per-

sonal interpretations, one that reflects the friendlier qualities of a

new generation of neo-grotesques, and has even taken on national accents, such as in amsterdam. Left: Anthony Kiedis Right: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

HC P 43

Fashion Fashi

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

ashion

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Fashio Fashion ionFashion Fashio shion Another Retrospective

Corbijn doesn’t much like looking at the past, but for an exhibit of this scope (it

includes more than 350 images; another

retrospective, “Hollands Deep,” just ended at the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague), he

was forced to confront his massive archive, scanning and going through negatives at

night after editing his film Life by day. (His other films include Control, about Joy Divi-

sion’s Ian Curtis, and The American, starring George Clooney.)

Aesthetic Qualities

Today’s typographic designers are developing design methods and

new typefaces specifically for the screen, as seen in the advancement of Avenir to Avenir Next. Those qualities that lead us to recognise a piece of printed text cannot be reduced to formulae or default

programs, but rather the effective use of typeface depends upon both technical expertise and historical knowledge of the functional and aesthetic qualities.

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Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Anton Corbijn & Avenir Amsterdam In recent decades the capital of the Netherlands has experienced both, rapid growth and the decentralization of its local government and all in a period when the expectations of its citizens and visitors were becoming more varied and demanding. With all these changes

Left: Christy Turlington Right: Liv Tyler

the city council and its allied services felt an increasing need for a unifying visual identity that would be inextricably bound to the culture of their organization. An identity flexible enough to represent the diverse services within the municipality, yet links each of these with the larger whole. This unifying style also needed to make a confident visual statement for use on printed material,packaging, clothing, website, and a fleet of city-owned vehicles.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir Not Purely Geometric Even though Avenir can be classified as a constructivist typeface, it does not have a purely geometric and linear drawing. The vertical stroke lengths have been reduced in order to make text setting more legible, on the well-established grounds that the human eye takes in horizontals more easily than verticals and tends to grasp the meaning of a line in a horizontal sweep. Left: Bjork Right: Bjork

bjork

“These evenings were sometimes a little

but I managed to get the detail back into

depressing sifting through rubbish at times

the image and I am myself too seeing this

but the elation when you find a forgotten

for the very first time in this show.” As

wonderful image is enormous and made

iconic as his photographs have become,

it worth going through the motions,” he

many of Corbijn’s most resonant and lasting

wrote recently in an email. A portrait of

photographer-subject relationships were

Morrissey, for instance: “I was able to

not always instant alliances. “Our first en-

salvage this image, which at the time I must

counter was for a front cover shot for the

have overexposed by four or five stops so

NME in 1981, but maybe we should forget

it was a very white image...”

that,” Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore dryly

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Worth the Motions

recounts in the catalogue.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Supposed to be Serious “Anton hated our music at the time and it was just a brief encounter—a job.” That all changed over some dozens of years and shoots since (“We spent most of the time laughing. How did this happen? Anton was supposed to be serious, black and white and grainy, and we were supposed to be doomy and mysterious!”) In fact Corbijn became so close to the band that he has been called the “fourth member.” And if his symbolic responsibilities with Depeche Mode don’t keep him busy enough, he’s also been regarded as the honorary fifth member of U2; other repeat subjects include Tom Waits, Nirvana, the Rolling Stones, Siouxsie Sioux, Metallica, and Arcade Fire.

Linear Style of San Serif Frutiger said of his work, “Looking back on more than 40 years of concern with sans serif typefaces, I felt an obligation to design a linear style of sans serif, in the tradition of Erbar, Futura, and to a lesser extent Gill Sans. These have purely constructed characters from which the element of a handwriting movement has been removed.”

Previous: Kate Bush Left: Nastassia Kinski Right: PJ Harvey

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Anton Corbijn & Avenir Closer to How Life Is A kind of chemistry unfolds. The Slits invited him to accompany them on the road, vintage shopping in Los Angeles and diving into the waters in Big Sur. In talking about the images they’d make together, Siouxsie Sioux was pleased to discover that she and Corbijn shared an affinity for the work of Man Ray. Or as Keith Richards says, “All great photographers have a third eye. Anton Corbijn has three third eyes.” “I feel the imperfection is much closer to how life is than perfection,” Dutch photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn tells TIME in recent interview as a massive retrospective went on show in Berlin.

He continues, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Even though Avenir can be classified as a constructivist typeface, it does not have a purely geometric and linear drawing. The vertical stroke lengths have been reduced in order to make text setting more legible, on the well-established grounds that the human eye takes in horizontals more easily than verticals and tends to grasp the meaning of a line in a horizontal sweep.â&#x20AC;?

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Horizontal Sweep

Left: Naomi Cambell Right: Naomi Cambell

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Text of Any Lengths And finally, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Avenir is intended to be nothing more nor less than a clear and clean representation of modern typographical trends, giving the designer a typeface which is strictly modern and at the same time humane, ie suitable refined and elegant for use in texts

of any length.

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

Left: Vanessa Paradis, Alexander McQueen Right: Naomi Cambell, PJ Harvey

Intimate Successes At 60, Corbijn still feels slightly shy and modest when talking about himself even though his success centers around his ability, he says, to focus on having intimacy with his subjects, which has become his unmistakable signature style and the secret behind defining image of music icons like Miles Davis and Bono. “I sometimes take pictures of celebrities,” he says, “but generally I take pictures of artists that I’m interested in. Some of them are celebrities, but celebrity is not my focus.”

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

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No Total Perfection

His photographs almost seem to extract an alternate reality but the goal for him

remains capturing intimacy, imperfection and humanity. “I feel that what I

photograph is that part of the real person should be in the picture,” he says.

“So it can’t be just composition. I set

something up but I let people free with-

in the setup. There’s always a naturalism somewhere but within my boundaries. I

photograph usually at a 60th of a second or a 30th of a second, so there is already

a natural movement in the frame without

people really being able to put a finger on it. And I shoot by hand so I’m open to all kinds of little human failure elements

because I don’t like the total perfection.”

Anton Corbijn & Avenir

oss Avenir Today

Avenir has become very popular in web, print, identity, and environmental graphic design. As part of their national identity the Netherlands uses Avenir on their site amsterdam.nl as well as in signage and brochures about their country. You can find Avenir playing a key part in the branding systems of the Reuters and Dulles Fort Worth Airport. On the web a customized version of the font is used in the logo for Shutterfly and the book and medium weights on purevolume.com. Frutiger describes his typeface as â&#x20AC;&#x153;modern and at the same time humaneâ&#x20AC;? but I find Avenir to be an inspiration.

Left: Kate Moss Right: Kate Moss