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The Typographic Circle

The Typographic Circle was formed in 1976 to bring together anyone with an interest in type and typography. We are a not-for-profit organisation run entirely by volunteers. We stage a variety of type and typography related events including a series of diverse monthly lectures by well-known industry

speakers, and the annual New York Type Directors Club exhibition.

The Typographic Circle Presents...

JOHNATHAN BARNBROOKJonathan Barnbrook is a British graphic designer, film maker and typogra-

pher. He trained at Central St Martin’s and at the Royal College of Art.

Barnbrook is arguably most-recognised for his design of the cover artwork of David Bowie’s 2002 album Heathen which featured the debut for his ‘Priori’ typeface. This is particularly appropriate as Barnbrook cites record cover artwork as an early design influence, and possibly the interest that drew him

to graphic design.

Barnbrook is also a well known font designer. These are released through ‘VirusFonts’ and include Bastard, Exocet, False Idol, Infidel, Moron, New-speak, Olympukes, Sarcastic, Shock & Awe. Many have emotive and contro-

versial titles reflecting the style and themes of Barnbrook’s work.

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Part of Barnbrook’s artwork for David Bowie’s album Heathen.

The Interview

This month’s interviewee has been one of the truly original voices in British design and typography since the early 1990s. With his foundry Virus and a de-sign practice built around vocal criti-cism of global politics and business, he’s about as far from design establish-ment orthodoxy as you can possibly get. He has worked in close collaboration with renowned artists such as David Bowie and Damien Hirst. His typefaces are at once classically informed and subtly confrontational; with names like Exocet and Infidel, these fonts defy ex-pectation with sophisticated layers of meaning and finely nuanced shades of grey — The Typographic Circle would like to welcome you to the cult of Jona-than Barnbrook, where nothing is ever simply black or white.

Typographic Cirlce - Throughout your career, you have been working both as a graphic designer for high-profile cli-ents and as a type designer. In what way do these two activities complement each other? Do they conflict sometimes?

Johnathan Barnbrook - They usually complement one another. I do like the fact that we can go ‘deeper’ into a job by designing a proper font for the project and further the design solution behind it by doing so. I also think it helps with the aesthetic fine-tuning of a job such as a corporate identity — you can design the logo and all of the parameters around it like the colors, etcetera — but the font gives a job a distinctive voice and for me is one of the most important pieces in the jigsaw.

Was it letterforms that got you interested in becoming a graphic designer in the first place?

Yes, because they created the tone of voice for everything in my life when I was young. The first ones I noticed were for the music bands I liked, I wasn’t re-ally conscious of it but in the band logo the letterforms absolutely represented the viewpoint and ideology of the band. I used to copy them painstakingly on all my school books. I remember using the letterforms then for other things like a letterhead, and thinking: “I can create a whole universe for myself, that is the way I want it to be.” That is still the at-traction of letterforms for me today.

Do you ever use fonts by others when doing graphic work, such as CD pack-aging or books or an identity for an event?

Yes of course, there are times when my fonts will not be appropriate, and you can have all kinds of fun subverting oth-er people’s typefaces, or you can simply enjoy the beauty of the drawing in an-other font. I do often use more ‘nostal-gic’ typefaces and try and lay them out in a contemporary way. That conflict of the typeface which is loaded with his-tory and all of the atmospheres and as-sumptions of a layout that can only come from this time can be a very interesting thing to play with.

You published several typefaces with Emigre, yet decided to set up your own foundry, Virus. Why go it alone?

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The Interview

Emigre think very carefully about the fonts they release and I had rather a lot of other fonts that needed to be published. I could have released them through anoth-er foundry, but I thought it better to do it through my own. I really wanted to be able to describe the whole range of emo-tional and intellectual reasons for releas-ing the fonts — releasing a typeface is like when a band releases an album. It describes your emotional state of mind at that moment. Full of layers of mean-ing, echoes of creative influences, ves-sels for ideologies that are prevalent or that you are interested in. I felt it wasn’t possible if they became a simple a-z re-leased by somebody else.

Some people think ‘Virus’ is the worst possible name for a foundry. I’m sure it was meant as a provocation. What con-notations does the name have for you?

Well, you know, I am a contrary kind of person; the worst possible reason can be the best possible reason because it will force people to rethink what they decide is normal. Plus, at the time I set up Virus in 1997, type design was just starting to come to terms with affordable comput-ers being able to create fonts. Up until then it was quite a stuffy, dull profes-sion. Suddenly though, a lot of young people were able to release fonts and the scene exploded. So first this name was to say that this was something quite sub-versive, not mainstream. Second that it was absolutely linked to the computer, not traditional methods. Third, it was to do with a statement from William Bur-roughs I found intriguing — he said

“language is a virus from outer space”. I liked the idea of this thing falsely im-posed that infected us all.

Interestingly, as the fonts were sent out on floppy disks at the time, the disk was packaged warning people that serious harm would come to their computer, without reference to the font. I really thought that it should be an expression of the new ideologies that were coming into graphic design at that time because of new technology.

How do you design your fonts — do you do a lot of sketching on napkins, or do you keep a sketchbook? Or is it straight to the computer?

There are so many different influences. Some of them are atmosphere, some of them are conceptual. So it depends on the font, though I will generally sketch the fonts very roughly by hand. It’s very important that they are ‘out of focus’ in a sketchbook in pencil at the beginning, so I can start to get the feeling right. These drawings are only a few centimeters big. I will then work a letterform over and over again, match it with others in the font, make it almost part of my hand-writing. This also happens even with the more modular fonts as it is the best way to work out the system of construction. Often when other people look at these drawings they are incomprehensible, but they have enough information inside them for me to understand the identity of the typeface. Once I feel I am get-ting somewhere I will start to draw on the computer — it makes the letterform

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The Interview

absolute, pure positive and negative. So there is a lot of refining that goes on until I am happy with it. It’s a long process but the end result of being able to write one simple word in letters you have designed makes it worthwhile still. Even better is that people write to you and show you the work they have done in a font. Often they will use it in a way you hadn’t expected and that is a very enlightening experience.

Many of your typefaces have incor-porated references to letterforms and styles of the past. In what ways should design history matter to today’s design-ers?

I think every graphic designer should have a proper knowledge about the his-tory of typography. When you sit down at the computer you should be aware of all the ideologies and influences that have brought you to that moment. Ty-pography in particular relies on existing models of familiarity which influence legibility and the message that people get from a font. It seems false not to acknowledge that when you draw the letterforms. Of course, most designers base their work on historical research in a fairly conventional way, but what I am talking about is whether or not you are explicitly saying something positive or negative with your models of letter-forms. For instance, I use the cross a lot

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Manson Serif & SansLike much of Barnbrook’s work, his Emigre clas-sic Mason is a web of contradictions, effortlessly weaving together the historical with the modern, incorporating Russian and Greek characteristics with classic British influences from Eric Gill and Edward Johnston. It has found a diverse audience, from the BBC and Walt Disney, who were drawn to its ecclesiastical voice, to the horror and and gothic subcultures in books, film and music.

Priori Serif & SansAlthough versatility and neutrality aren’t qualities usually associated with Barnbrook’s output, the Priori family has enough of each to qualify it as a genuine if unconventional text face. As rich in alternative characters and as connotative as you’d expect of a Barnbrook project, with a wide range of weights, small caps, lining figures and both sans and serif versions.

Created Typefaces

The Interview

in my designs, and on one level it is say-ing that historically western typography has been linked with the church, while on another level it’s a symbol that a lot of people have a negative view of. On yet another level it plays with the idea that once a word is printed it still seems to have an authority in quite a totalitar-ian way and finally it’s a direct reminder of the ‘classical’ aesthetic which influ-enced me so much. I like the fact that all that can coexist in one font.

But there is more to it than that: A type-face can be a ‘collage’, a ‘synthesis’ of a time, a place, or something you want to say. It’s the opposite of the historical re-search, because you construct using dif-ferent letterforms from different sources which somehow fit together and make something new. My first two fonts Pro-totype andBastard were some very early advanced experiments in this. More re-cently Priori from Emigre does the same thing. It doesn’t adhere to one historical model but it’s a historically based font for our time.

Are you often surprised, amused or an-noyed about where some of your type-faces end up?

I am first very happy that people find the fonts interesting and relevant enough to be used. I don’t know if that’s a disap-pointing answer, but I think we should all have a sense of humor about ourselves, there’s no point getting upset. I feel ex-tremely privileged that I have some im-pact on contemporary visual language and that my visual ideas coincide with

other people’s. Unlike many designers I do think the world would be a really boring place if everything was perfectly designed. We need a clashing of visual styles, naivety, alien influences to keep design alive and what is often bad can become what we regard as rather good.

As far as I know, you have been work-ing on your own or just with a couple of assistants or interns for more than fifteen years. Has it been difficult not to grow?

Well, to maintain the standard of the work it’s essential to remain small. Eve-ry job in the studio is the result of dis-cussions between the people here, of an atmosphere of not having to be too busi-ness-like in our attitude, of being able to laugh while working, of knowing every-body well, of not having to take jobs on to just pay the bills. I do know because of our skill we have an influence and interest far beyond the size of our com-pany and I hope that this provides hope for people just starting in the profession; that you can do large jobs, do the work you want to do, not compromise your principles and still survive.

You seem like quite an uncompromising individual, but are there many occa-sions when you must choose the lesser of two evils when it comes to accepting commissions?

Well, you will be surprised at the amount of people who say I am very easy to work with! I think the basis of getting good work done is not to be involved with any kind of fight with a client but that you

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have their trust, then they can let go a bit and have confidence to let you lead them rather than serve them. I think you have to really like people to be a good designer, it’s not a solitary activity. As for accepting clients or not, economies are complex, so it’s often very difficult to actually say when somebody is cre-ating ‘harm’ or not. so I usually go on my instinct. You can tell quite quickly whether you are ‘comfortable’ with what a client does. However, I do believe in dialogue, so if someone who I wouldn’t normally work for came to me and said “I actually want to try and operate dif-ferently” I would be happy to listen.

Who do you consider to be your peers, in both the graphic and the broader de-sign worlds? Who else manages to mix politically motivated work with a com-mercial practice?

I don’t really know... and that’s because I hardly ever keep up with what is go-ing on in graphic design. I am passionate about it of course, but I would rather be ‘doing’, than reading or seeing stuff. I would rather not look at other designers’ work as I understand the process they have gone through to get to it.

I am very interested in other areas of hu-man activity — I could name more phi-losophers or electronic avant-garde mu-sicians than graphic designers, those are the kind of people that I tend to follow. I do know though that it’s pretty rare, be-ing politically involved for a designer is a lot of effort, and most people would rather have a comfortable life and not

worry too much about such things. It’s quite easy to be a ‘nice designer’ without using your brain too much.

It’s far more interesting to look at ex-periments in another field and see if it can be applied to graphic design. For in-stance I am thinking about how to apply the ideas of Samuel Beckett to typogra-phy; the absent parts of a conversation, the pauses and the spaces being as im-portant as the spoken word. Currently the most interesting thing is the idea of epic theatre by Brecht and how it could be applied to design.

And finally, here is a question that many of our readers may be dying to ask: what was it like to work with David Bowie?

I am happy to say he is pleasure to work with. It is always interesting to see how much ‘being worshipped’ affects people. They can become a spoiled child, a per-son detached from reality. I am happy to say that David Bowie is none of these. He has come out of a pretty ‘eventful’ life — drug addiction, leader of rebel-lion for a generation, messiah to each wave of disaffected youths — with a sense of humor and a level head. He is always very good in his criticism, re-spectful of my creativity and respectful of the people who like his music. I just wish more of the famous people who I had worked with were like him.

The Interview

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