Typography Dojo

Having built a career as a design every man, Steven Bonner nurtures a flexible approach that works across all creative disciplines. He takes a blank canvas approach to each brief that has helped him develop a varied skillset over years, leading to a portfolio with a unique mix of design, illustration, and lettering. This versatility has allowed him to work across advertising, editorial, publishing, and packaging – earning a reputation for high-quality work and reliability along the way.  Steven is a graphic designer, illustrator, and typographer based in Glasgow whose work has been recognized by a number of bodies including the D&AD, Type Director's Club, the One Show, the Art Director's Club, Communication Arts, and the American Advertising Awards amongst others. He has also had the honor of being listed as one of AdWeek's top 100 creatives worldwide, as well as The Drum's 'Designerati' list of the top 100 UK creatives. In this podcast, we discuss his typographic approach to retail design, spirits packaging and food brand identity. We also talk about typography with purpose. View the show notes at typographydojo.com/011

This original interview with Martina was recorded on June 8, 2016. Martina Flor combines her talents as both a designer and an illustrator in the drawing of beautiful letters. Based in Berlin, she has worked in the creative industry for over 12 years with an emphasis on type design, lettering, and illustration. Working by hand as well as digitally, she has developed a wonderfully elegant style with a love for detail and flourishes. Martina combines her talents as designer and illustrator in the drawing of letters. Based in Berlin, she runs studio specializing in lettering and custom typography for clients around the globe, such as: The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Harper Collins, Penguin Random House, Monotype, Etsy, Adobe, Fontshop, and Cosmopolitan, among others. In this podcast, we chat about her side projects and teaching, as well as dive deep into her creative process. We also talk a lot about creative community. In the Typography Conversation segment, I talk with Delve Withrington from Delve Fonts about type stuff—the design and the technical side of those lovable letterforms, the support from local design communities, and Martina Flor who is the keynote presenter at TypeCon. Show notes: http://typographydojo.com/010

The original interview was recorded on May 26, 2017. Font designer Chank Diesel was born Charles Anderson, but neighbors called him "Chanky," after Spanky from the Little Rascals. He has been running his Minneapolis-based type house and art studio, Chank Fonts since 1992. Clients who have used Chank's custom font services include Ben & Jerry's, Cartoon Network, Indian Motorcycle, PBS Kids, Scholastic Books, Simon & Schuster, Target, Walt Disney, and much more. In this podcast episode, we talk to Chank about his font-making process in original experimental free fonts and affordable trendsetting commercial fonts. In the typography conversation segment, I ask Michael to explain and demonstrate to the TypeEd Alumni how to determine the body copy size just by the format and size of the page. Please leave the Typography Dojo podcast a rating and review on iTunes and help spread the good word of type. See you next week in the #typedojo! View the show notes at typographydojo.com/009

Angela Southern is a bespoke lettering artist and illustrator who learned her craft on the job as a sign artist at Trader Joe's from other professional lettering artists at the company. She became good at cranking out lots of artwork under deadline and is now doing work for Time Out, Cooking Light Magazine, Chicago Magazine, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and more.In the typography talk segment I ask Aspacia Kusulas about calligraphy; why it's so important to learn for a typographer, lettering artist or type designer.  In the typography talk segment I ask Aspacia Kusulas about calligraphy; why it's so important to learn for a typographer, lettering artist or type designer.  View the show notes: http://typographydojo.com/008

In this episode, Terrance reveals how he came to specialize in type, and show some development milestones along the way. Besides type design, he touches on calligraphy, lettering, and real-world applications like food packaging. He talks about some of his greatest hits like the custom font family for Domino's, Joanna Sans Nova, and Kairos. I met Terrance at TypeCon in Washington D.C. and enjoyed his talk that he gave about observations in food packaging, and have been watching his work ever since.  In the typography talk segment with Michael Stinson, I changed it up a bit and included a portion of a one-on-one mentoring session between Michael and Winston. Winston asks Michael some questions that most designers ask, so we decided to share the recording. Thank you, Winston Struye for sharing some of this conversation! View the show notes here: https://typographydojo.com/007 Tweet questions or comments to me @TypographyDojo

Paul was a former script coordinator in network TV for close to a decade before shifting to the world of design. Select credits include Friday Night Lights (NBC), Switched at Birth (ABC Family/Freeform), and Mercy (NBC).  Paul and I chat about Courier as the linchpin behind the scenes of Los Angeles typography. As the standard face for all motion picture and television screenplays, Courier's monospaced letterforms built the City of Angels into the entertainment capital of the world. While other businesses evolve their communication design past the hallmarks of the typewriter era, the movie & TV industries remain faithful to Courier and stay connected to Hollywood's golden age.  We talk about: The history of Courier and why it remains the industry standard in TV & film Different examples of produced scripts and the various ways they are formatted Potential ways the film & TV industry can incorporate design principles into their work Paul Mendoza and I know each other from board service at AIGA Los Angeles. When I heard he had been a script coordinator, I was intrigued. Little did I know he had such a unique point of view about Courier.  In my conversation with my partner Michael Stinson, we talk about how to copyfit a page, and how that page is related to a system of type on multipage documents, and how that relates to not on the budget, but the efficacy of the design in communicating the concept. See the show notes: http://typographydojo.com/006 Tweet questions or comments to me @TypographyDojo  

What is the future of typography, as our lives are becoming more digital? Gemma O'Brien is on the show from her studio in Sydney, Australia, and she will explore this question while we have a conversation about her philosophy behind the trend of authenticity in design and why she thinks the future of typography is human. In this discussion, Gemma and I invited the live audience to contribute with ideas about the future of typography and where they feel it's going. Michael's typography lesson is about three things to keep in mind when choosing script typefaces. There are some great tips about choosing for readability if you cannot hand-letter your type like Gemma O'Brien. View the show notes here: http://typographydojo.com/005 Tweet questions or comments to me @TypographyDojo

In this episode, I chat with designer Steve Rachwal who used to work as a typesetter at EllaType on Sunset Boulevard from 1985 to 1988 on the Berthold phototypesetting computer system. EllaType was strictly a Berthold shop, which featured the best cut fonts in the world. Steve helped to typeset nearly the entire Motown music collection as they converted the LPs to CDs, including lots of liner notes and song lists. He also did a lot of typesetting work for Los Angeles-area design greats Sussman/Prejza and Burson-Marsteller.  He recounts the typesetting process pre-computer and walks us through what that was like. Towards the end of the interview, Briar Levit, director of the Graphic Means documentary joins us and asks her some questions herself.  I encountered Steve on my search for phototypesetting equipment for a cold type workshop. Alas, we never found working equipment and didn't run the workshop. But I was happy to find Steve. In my conversation with Michael Stinson, we discuss the value of typography for his career and he discusses type skills needed during the annual report days.  View the show notes here: http://typographydojo.com/004 Tweet questions or comments to me @TypographyDojo

In this session we get a rare peek at some of the type projects and mindset Rod and his team work on in their San Francisco design office, PSY/OPS. Rod also serves as Adjunct Professor of Type Design at California College of the Arts; and Instructional Lead at (The) Alphabetic Order. His passion for type and teaching are boundless, and he can usually be found experimenting with letters in some form, on screen or off. Towards the end, Michael Stinson and I discuss why typography is so essential to logotype design and development. View the show notes here: http://www.typographydojo.com/003 Tweet questions or comments to me @TypographyDojo

Nikki Villagomez is Graphic Designer and Creative Studio Manager at Dixon Hughes Goodman. She is also an avid letterhunter and the author of Culture + Typography: How Culture Affects Typography. She's been scouring the nation seeking clues that communicate the culture of a city through the typography of the city surroundings, evident in historical signage, ghost signs, manhole covers, and more.  Nikki gathers images from the city's designers, puts them together and gives the inhabitants back a vision of their culture as seen through a typographer's eyes. Her book Culture + Typography is a culmination of historical and cultural discoveries along her AIGA Chapter tour and compares and contrasts culture throughout the cities as expressed through their man-made landscape. With Michael Stinson, I discuss finding a primary typeface for wordmark or logotype, and possibilities to consider. View the show notes here: http://www.typographydojo.com/002 Tweet questions or comments to me @TypographyDojo