British graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, known for his fierce commitment to a socially responsible design practice, highly expressive typefaces and projects like the Damien Hirst book I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now and his monograph, the aptly titled The Barnbrook Bible, has no direct relation to Cranbrook, but he was one of only a handful of designers who really inspired me in the mid nineties to find my voice as a designer, which is what ultimately led me there.

Barnbrook design just released a new font family called Regime, on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration and mr. Barnbrook was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for CranbrookDesign.com.

1. Since the signing of the First things first manifesto in 2000, how well have you been able to stick to the principle of “not promoting industries and products perceived to be harmful” and did you have any stumbling blocks or dilemmas since then?

We are not perfect although we try very hard. we do have a definite policy about who we work with and if somebody wants to work with us we will check them out. There are quite a few companies that we have turned down but I think it is now at the stage that certain people would not be silly enough to ask us. Its important that designers make a stand and let companies know they are not completely mercenary. Often people will argue they can’t afford to turn down work, and I know its not a case of them being starving...so they are changing it to a black and white situation that does not exist.... Also usually these are the people who can’t be bothered to do ANYTHING, the manifesto was not just questioning about who we work for, it was asking us to use our skills to help society, so that means positive engagement and volunteering, not just cynicism.

2. With the various “Social” and “Green” initiatives that most corporations have put in place in the past 5 years or so and their careful policing of communication standards for in-house designers, do you feel like there is more truth in advertising, or just better disguised lies?

I think advertising is always a reflection of the society that we live in generally it is no more honest or dishonest than we are. I do think though that in the area of brand building that the environment has been used very cynically, however what these companies do not realize is that by acknowledging the question of the environment and their impact on it, that it can’t be ignored, they will always be pressured and made accountable from that moment. I actually feel very positive about the way things have moved on in the past 10 years, we have come a long way and people are serious about it now, so things have to change.

3. I came across one of your typefaces [Mason Serif], in the current ad campaign for Sobieski Vodka.

Taking this example, do you think that:
a.) This company is “not promoting a product that is harmful” ?

One of the most difficult questions we all face is where the responsibility stops. For instance, is it a drink manufacturers fault that there are alcoholics? I am not sure it is. It has to do with the cultural role that we put on alcohol and have done since man has made it. However, we find it easier to attack the drink companies rather than look into ourselves. So it’s only usually when a company has knowingly done something negative that we wont work for them. We would rather have a dialogue, but often they are not interested.

b.) Do you separate the use of your fonts by other designers from the client work you do yourself?

I think language and fonts are tools to be used by society. They can be used in a positive way or a negative way and to try and control the usage of my fonts for ‘responsible’ work, would be first unrealistic and second not acknowledging that communication, culture and the human psyche don’t have a negative side which counters the positive. So what I am interested in is people expressing themselves with them.

I also don’t think it would make any difference if I stopped people using them. What does make a difference is the inverse thing I do which is not to buy stuff from companies whose ethical policies I don’t agree with. This is a far more useful thing to do because it hits them in their profit margin.

4. Emigré fonts used to represent your fonts exclusively. They still sell them but you have taken over as the label under the Virus Fonts banner, what are the advantages or disadvantages of this move?

It is great to be associated with Emigré because they were one of the first digital foundries and certainly I think one of the best, both Zuzana and Rudy are a pleasure to work with and I think Zuzana in particular is one of the most talented type designers around. The advantages though of having my own foundry are entirely practical in the first place - I can release every font that I want to, with Emigré that wasn’t possible so I needed an outlet for all of the fonts. I also wanted to design the literature etc. around the fonts as I felt they needed explaining in a very definite way. My font have very definite voices and ideologies and Virus gives me a chance to explain that.

The disadvantages are that we sell a lot less than Emigré because its one of the font design is one many things this studio does, so we cant put as much effort into promotion or even releasing fonts as often as we would like. Also of course we have to deal with the money side, setting up payments etc. which is a big part of the time it takes but that is something to be expected in this situation. Virus for the amount of time we spend on it does not make any money, but we think its important to have a voice in the world of font design.

5. In what way has the collaboration with Adbusters been meaningful to the development of your work?

I think it confirmed something that was appearing in my private political work but it was good to collaborate with them in that I had to speak very directly to a larger audience when designing Adbusters magazine.

When I first found Adbusters in a shop in London it felt like I could ‘breathe’ they articulated many of things I had been thinking but couldn’t express tangibly in my work. I do believe the mainstream media is constructed to avoid us being too critical of both companies and politicians, to accept these things as either separate from our daily or family life or as an authority not to be challenged or criticized.

6. You chose to keep Barnbrook Design studio physically small, with only 5 employees, are any projects ever too large or complex to take on?

No, there are never any projects that are too large to take on. Because we are really well organized and know the right people to call if we need help. It’s more the case that we are not offered the bigger projects because possible clients perceive us as not big enough to handle them. There is still this ‘confidence’ thing that clients need and the large, creatively bankrupt design companies feed off, that is you have to be perceived to be a safe business with a flashy reception area to get the big projects.

7. The Friendly Fire exhibition seems to have been an enormous project. Was it inspiring to look back and take stock of your history in such a comprehensive way?

Actually I avoided doing a retrospective for quite a few years, because I was worried that to look back meant that I wasn’t just going forward as much as possible, when you don’t think about a history I think its generally better but the exhibition offered the chance to create a universe which people would understand why we are doing the work we do now.

I do feel that people sometimes look at the work and dismiss it as just style which is obviously the opposite of what it is, all of the work is about form and content in relation to each other so hopefully seeing it in its totality made people see there were themes and concerns that were running through the work.

8. You recently designed the Identity for a Japanese funeral home called Dignity. It’s great to see that your type design and typography is being used for this industry but in such a non-predictable and not-so-dark way (as compared to the many Gothic applications of your fonts in video game advertising for example).

Yes it makes a change to have some restraint with them!

What was working on this project like for you and how did you approach the difficult subject of death?

It was a project that I really wanted to work on, actually a friend who coordinates and organizes design mentioned that they were working on finding a designer and a name for the company and I immediately shouted “I HAVE TO DO IT” because I have always been interested in the design of gravestones and the Victorian interest in the visual vocabulary of mourning.

I also thought it could be a very interesting area to work in, because most of the stuff is actually badly designed, yet it is an area that demands sensitivity and now more than ever a pluralistic non-denominational outlook.

So the corporate was very consciously designed to be both modern yet with a traditional basis, and not to push the design too much into peoples faces. I think it has the right balance of all these things and has allowed the company to offer services such as an email from somebody sent from a terminally ill person to their children every year on their birthday or ecological funerals. More creative and thoughtful ways of marking the transition from life to death.

9. Is there any project that is important to you personally that you feel has gotten relatively little exposure?

I think outside Japan it’s the corporate identity stuff, we have innovated in that is not so well known. Stuff like Roppongi Hills, Mori Art Museum, Dignity and Daichi Wo Mamoru Kai add something new to this area.