Typeradio Podcast

Having done research in medieval manuscripts, Brody Neuenschwander completed his doctorate on the methodology of German art history in 1986 at the Courtauld Institute in London, while studying calligraphy at the Roehampton Institute. This crossed education carried him to become a professional calligrapher with a passion for the relationship between writing and language. Among other things he talked to us about tools, the different ways of teaching writing to children in school nowadays, the presence of calligraphy in art and how to deliver messages through the written words –as he did for Peter Greenaway’s movies; contributing with a very valuable insight into the role of calligraphy in society. Recorded at the Letterheads Amsterdam Signpainters conference, 2016

Born in 1959, Paul Cox is a multi-talented French artist. Although keen to become a musician he is well known for his graphic design, illustration, paintings and stage art. Inspired by music and 19th century paintings, his work is characterized by improvisation and crossing borders between literature, dance, architecture. As an author of children books, he created ‘Abstract Alphabet: a book of animals’ published in 2001 by Chronicle Books, where colourful organic shapes make up the letters, which form the names of twenty-six different animals. Cox has started collecting the whole of his work (paintings, installations, illustrations, graphic design etc) in book form, the first volume of which, ‘Coxcodex 1’ was published at Editions du Seuil in 2004. Recorded at the Integrated Conference 2015, Antwerpen, Belgium

Joost Grootens is a Dutch graphic designer, who studied architectural design at Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam. He established Studio Joost Grootens (SJG) in 1995. His studio is very well known for their information design, infographics and the design of books related to architecture, art, design, photography, research… Analytical thinking and the use of type as an essential element, are the main traits. In his own words: ‘Every book is about celebrating the printing process.’ Recorded at the Integrated Conference 2015, Antwerp, Belgium

Gayaneh Bagdasaryan is a graduate of Moscow State University of Printing Arts and has designed Cyrillic localizations for most major type libraries. She began her type design career at ParaType in 1996 and founded Brownfox type studio in 2012. Gayaneh is also the initiator of Serebro Nabora, a prominent annual international type conference held in Russia. Gayaneh explains how she became interested in typography in the first place. We also wonder how Russian typedesigners worked before and after perestroika. Gayaneh talks about her font foundry and why it took her so long before she started it. We discuss whether it’s possible to create a new typeface nowadays and hear all about how the Serebro Nebora Conference started. Recorded at the Serebro Nebora 2015 Conference in Moscow, Russia.

Alexandra Korolkova is the principal type designer at Paratype and a teachter of type design and typography in Moscow. In 2013 she was awarded with the prestgious Prix Charles Peignot, so we ask her about how the award influenced her career, and her statements on the design of Cyrillic in her acceptance speech at Atypi 2013 in Amsterdam. Does designing Latin or Cyrillic make any difference for her? We asked her about her heroes, the fast developments in Russian type design of recent years, and the awareness of typography in Russia in general. Alexandra further talks about her book Living Typography, that has been published in the meantime , and her ‘dream project’ PT Sans and PT Serif. Recorded at the Serebro Nebora 2015 conference in Moscow, Russia.

Ukrainian designer Anna Kulachek works and lives in Moscow. She teaches graphic design at the Higher School of Economics and is art director at the Strelka Institute. Earlier she worked for the communication research centre Fabrica in Italy and Design Depot in Moscow. We talk with Anna about why she decided to move to Moscow to study graphic design. We wonder what the differences are between graphic design from the West and the East (Russia and Ukraine). Anna explains how the Cyrillic writing system is very much influencing the way she designs. We end the interview with the question if she still has a dream job, something that she would really like to do in the future. Recorded at the Serebro Nebora 2015 Conference in Moscow, Russia.

Type and graphic designer and teacher Ilya Ruderman lives and works in Moscow. He is a graduate of the Moscow State University of the Printing Arts. Later he received a MA degree from the Type & Media course at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. After returning to Moscow he started teaching type and typography at the British Higher School of Art and Design. For several years he was also an art-director, when In 2014 he founded CSTM Fonts with Yury Ostromentsky. Ilya talks about how Alexander Tarbeev introduced him to type and typography. And about his first type design project, back in 1999. After his studies Ilya moved back to Moscow. We talk about the different projects that he did over the years. How he has been working as a graphic designer during the day and as a type designer during the night. We also wonder how he became, for western type foundries, the go-to-guy for the cyrillic extension to a certain type family. And because it’s one of his favorite questions on Typeradio, we ask Ilya about his drinking habits. Recorded at the Serebro Nebora 2015 Conference in Moscow, Russia.

Born in England, Richard Hollis has been a freelance graphic designer since 1958. He has worked as a printer, art editor, production manager, writer, teacher and lecturer. Hollis taught at various London art schools, as well as co-founded, with Norman Potter, the Graphic Design Department at the West of England College of Art in Bristol in 1964. His book design includes John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’, and a large body of work for the Whitechapel Art Gallery. He has also made a significant contribution to the history of graphic design in through his books including ‘Graphic Design: A Concise History’. In the interview with Richard Hollis we talk about his personal values. And how your own values are expressed through the way you work and the way you behave towards the people you’re working with or working for. Richard explains how he hardly ever changes typefaces. He always uses the same typefaces in making catalogues and books. We wonder, apart from the kind of job or the topics that he’s designing for, if his political views can be seen in his design work. We also talk about his fascination for Swiss Graphic Design and he explains why he has written a book about the topic: ‘Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style’. We end the interview with how a painting of two tortoises, that Richard has seen at the Mauritshuis, is related to writing. Recorded at the Karel Martens Symposium at KABK, The Hague, the Netherlands.

Dan Rhatigan is a type director at Monotype, based in New York. He works on custom type development projects and consults on typographic issues with customers, and from time to time he gives talks about type and typography. Prior to Monotype Dan worked as a publishing technologies analyst, as a designer in New York, and with numerous freelance clients. Over the years, he has also taught graphic design, typography, and branding. We talk with Dan Rhatigan about his role and tale as a type director at Monotype. We’re curious if they get a lot of submissions and if Dan also judges these himself. Dan also gives us his view on the major developments in the near future for typography and type design. We wonder how he looks upon the lack of knowledge some users have working with OpenType. He explains how he is regularly surprised how little the world outside of type design really understands about the sophistication of the tools that are being prepared for them. And of course we talk about Dan’s typographic tattoos and wonder if he has plans for a new one. Recorded at the Robothon 2015 Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Ian Swift aka Swifty is a dedicated graphic artist. Since embarking on his career at The Face magazine in 1986 he has pursued an individual course which has led him to specialise in the music industry and youth culture aesthetics. Equally at home with a club flyer or a complex movie title sequence, he has successfully run his own practice ‘Swifty – Grafix’ for over two decades. His work has featured in dozens of books and magazines and in 1997 he launched ‘Typomatic’, UK’s first independent font foundry. While his reputation and working life is rooted in the typo-grafix world recent exhibitions reveal a shift in Swift’s focus towards a body of artworks with a more exploratory and personal dimension. Ian Swift talks about his upbringing and how he wanted to be in the army when he was younger. He explains what triggered him to go to art school and become a graphic designer. And how he got in contact with Neville Brody, while in his third year at Manchester Polytechnic. Later on he worked for Straight No Chaser magazine. We wonder if he thinks this is where he developed his own visual language. Ian explains how the magazine became a vehicle for his font design as well. Furthermore we talk about his attitude towards licensing fonts, ‘The only thing I can actually call my own are my fonts.’ Recorded via Skype in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. (We apologize for the audio quality)

Nick Sherman is a typo­grapher and typographic consultant based in New York City, co-founder of Fonts In Use and columnist at A List Apart, serves on the board of directors for the Type Directors Club, the Adobe Typography Customer Advisory Board, as well as the artistic board for the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museumh He is both a graduate of and consultant for the typeface design program at Cooper Union. He graduated with honors from the Graphic Design pro­gram at MassArt in Boston, where he also taught undergraduate typography and letterpress printing. Nick has worked at Font Bureau, Webtype, and MyFonts, directing web design and promotional material for typefaces in print and digital media. In this interview we talk about Nick’s rituals involving pizza. We wonder if there’re any similarities between pizza and type. Nick explains how he got interested in graphic arts at an early age through music. And how he later on started focussing more on typography. We also talk about the project he did for the Hamilton Wood Type Museum and his work for MyFonts, Font Bureau, Webtype and Fonts in Use. We wonder if Nick can see how type trends go, where it’s getting influenced by, and if he thinks that we’re reaching some sort of a saturation point? Recorded at the Robothon 2015 Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Born in Croatia, Nikola Djurek is a typographic designer with interest in programming, teaching and old letterforms. Nikola studied in Croatia, Italy and The Netherlands and earned his PhD degree in graphic type design. He combines his practice – Typonine – with teaching typography and type design at the Universities of Split and Zagreb in Croatia. We start the interview with Nikola explaining the number nine in Typonine. We’re curious if he considers himself more to be a type designer or a graphic designer. Nikola is also running a small family vinery in Zargorje, Croatia and we wonder if there’re similarities between type design and winemaking. Does he think a typeface gets better with time? We talk about the Balkan war and how it influenced Nikola’s life and way of working. We also talk about his typeface Balkan and the extreme reactions it got. Nikola explains his intention with the typeface. Recorded at the Robothon 2015 Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands.

In this second part of the interview we talk about April’s photography project, a series of low-res digital images named Drive-by Shooting. She treats these images like paintings and works on them for endless hours and days. Futhermore we talk about the Miracle Manor Retreat. April tells us why she started this B&B spa-motel 17 years ago in Desert Hot Springs, California. We end the interview with the question how she would liked to be remembered. Recorded at Made in Space studio in Los Angeles, California.

April Greiman is a thinker, designer and artist. Originally from New York, April studied design and painting in Basel, Switzerland and the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. In 1976 she moved to Los Angeles where she established her multi-disciplinary practice Made in Space. Greiman has been instrumental in the acceptance and use of advanced technology in the arts and the design process since the early 1980s. We talk with April Greiman about her family background and how she ended up studying in the Midwest. April explains why the Macintosh computer and software played such a significant role in her work. We also talk about her unpleasant introduction to the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), about the period she was chair of the Visual Communications program at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and her short involvement with Pentagram. Recorded at Made In Space studio in Los Angeles, California.

Kali Nikitas wears a lot of hats, as an academic administrator, educator, graphic designer and curator. Kali is Department Chair of Communication Arts and MFA Graphic Design at Otis College of Art and Design. She and her husband, Rich Shelton, are the partners of Graphic Design for Love (+$). We start the interview talking about Kali’s teaching experience and how her perspective on teaching has changed over the years. We’re also curious why she has moved around so much and like to hear more about her long-standing relationship with the Netherlands. Because Kali has curated several design exhibitions we wonder if there’re similarities between teaching, running the design department and curating. One of her exhibitions is called ‘And She Told 2Friends: An International Exhibition of Graphic Design by Women’. Because it took place twenty years ago, we talk about it’s relevance nowadays. Recorded at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California.