Delicious: Tasty web development and print design >
The Coen Brothers’ more talkative cousins?
07th April 2008
In a world that can be seen as cold and rarefied, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones and their foundry, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, are a real breath of fresh air in type design. They are young, enthusiastic and entertaining. Dare say, they could be becoming household names alongside Frederic Goudy in the public’s consciousness.
Hoefler & Frere-Jones have been designing some of the most celebrated typefaces for the last decade. Their type is everywhere but it’s not ubiquitous; they are not installed on every PC, but are being used in high profile publications and public buildings. Gotham was chosen as the type for the cornerstone of the proposed Freedom Towers in New York, which is a fine achievement.
In a talk they gave last October at the AIGA Next Conference, they came across like the Coen Brothers’ more talkative cousins. Alright, they are not brothers but go with me on this one. They are wonderfully rye, dry and possess just a little dash of irony.
It was interesting and candid account of how they approached designing some of their more recent faces – Archer for Martha Stewart’s Living magazine and Exchange for The Wall Street Journal.
What came across was the amount of hard work that was involved in designing these two very differing typefaces, both needing to work in very hostile environments. Years of development and re evaluation seems to be part of the type designers lot.
Their approach to design is an interesting one. It is archaeological in a sense that they imagine the motivation behind older typeface designs. Instead of taking a typeface from the past and reworking it, they go after the original type designers ideas instead.
No longer are they simply copying and transforming design details, they are taking more of the essence of an established design and making something even more original.
Even if you have a passing interest in the world of type, their Typography: What’s Next? podcast will make you think differently about what you read and how you read it.
[ Filed under Typography ]
Recent Posts
- For god’s sake MAC people, stop using bloated font management apps and use Linotype FontExplorer!
- Quick and effective sharpening in Photoshop
- Outstanding album covers of the last 20 years – Part 1
- Graphic Icon: Alan Fletcher
- Looking for that ideal code editor. Might Coda be it?
