Books Written and Edited
Made with Font Font
Made with Font Font
Co-edited with Erik Spiekermann.
From 1998 to 2002 I worked regularly for FontShop Benelux (=Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg), writing and designing brochures, and making Druk and “96” magazines. Through this work I got to know Joan Spiekermann Sargent and Erik Spiekermann, the founders of FontShop.
To celebrate the 15-year anniversary of FontFont, FontShop International’s type library, it was decided to produce a travelling exhibition, FiFFteen. I was invited to be its co-curator (with Spiekermann) and editor; FontFont co-founder Neville Brody curated the section dedicate to his experimental FUSE project. In mid-2004 I spent considerable time in Berlin, writing texts and on collecting objects and images. FiFFteen took off in late 2004 with an exhibition at the London College of Communication, then travelled on to places like New York, Helsinki, Valencia, and finally Goa, India.
The following year Joan Spiekermann proposed to follow up the exhibition with a book, which I was to edit in collaboration with Erik, who was also the designer of the book. For the sake of efficiency and to keep the budget lean, I proposed to work mostly with existing texts (type history, type analysis and interviews) by design critics and by FontFont designers themselves. I also invited designers to make adventurous type specimens, from single pages to 8-page visual essays. One series of specimens was produced by well-known graphic designers, including Ellen Lupton, Mark Thomson, Vincent van Baar and Reza Abedini; all got paid in FontFonts, no money changed hands. The other series was done by FontFont designers, documenting the ideas behind, and development of, their own work.