Jonathan Barnbrook | Font Magazine 002 | Features





Jonathan Barnbrook directs television ads, designs books, magazines, has designed a restaurant (Pharmacy) and its takeaway equivalent (Outpatients) as part of his continuing collaboration with British artist Damien Hirst (Barnbrook designed the Hirst monograph, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now. published by Booth-Clibborn). He has created a typeface for Shiseido, designed fabric and fashion items for Beams boutiques in Japan, and he continues to generate his Virus fonts. Although hard to pin down to one defining role, Barnbrook has received design awards from New York to Tokyo in a range of categories. But for Barnbrook, designing is much more than being touted for plum projects and receiving kudos. Barnbrook wants to prod, provoke, inspire and incite through design. And he manages to do this for diverse clients, many of whom seek him out for his conceptual ingenuity, symbiosis of type and image, and the visual energy that emanates from his designs. And this designer doesn’t hesitate when offered the opportunity to dive into ideological waters and deliberately swim in political ponds. Barnbrook’s desire to make design an agent of change (politically, socially, culturally) is seen in his recent editorial work for Design magazine in Korea, his designs for the Japanese magazine Kohkoku, and his guest art director’s stint for the Canadian magazine with a message, Adbusters.		Detail of an image from Design magazine issue on North Korea depicting the meeting of North and South Korean relatives who had been separated for 50 years. The text emphasizes “memory” before the dictatorship had begun, and the power of memory to defeat dictatorships.

Cover for Design magazine using “Build Your Brand,” a term from Naomi Klein’s No Logo: Taking Aim at Brand Bullies. Barnbrook adds, “This refers to the new way that companies enhance the brand to maximize profit and also refers to the way that a dictatorship has to infliltrate all visual culture in order to sustain its power.” Detail of a spread from Design magazine on North Korea portraying dead dictator Kim Il Sung with children.	Barnbrook is the product of St. Martins College of Art and Design and the Royal College of Art. Barnbrook Studio (with Jason Beard and Marcus McCallion) in London is home base, but he travels frequently to pursue opportunities to design internationally. This was the case for recent issues of Korea’s Design based in Seoul. Designing in two languages was challenging, but conveying the content was the real appeal. For an issue focusing on North Korea, Barnbrook interprets text culled from Naomi Klein’s No Logo, a polemic decrying global branding. The cover images for his first issue capture Korea’s historical mythology and its contemporary stance. The text from Klein, “build your brand,” according to Barnbrook, “refers to the new ways companies enhance the brand to maximize profit and also refers to the way that a dictatorship has to infiltrate all visual culture in order to constantly sustain its power.” Barnbrook montages and contrasts images with searing text. For example, Barnbrook posits that “Real utopias don’t need walls” over images of military force. In a design decrying political systems, Barnbrook typographically emphasizes the text, “In the 21st century all political ideologies are dead—all that’s left is patriotism and greed.” Echoing these themes, Barnbrook juxtaposes idealized images which capture Korean society while wielding type as a weapon for political discourse. For Kohkoku, the Japanese magazine published by the Hakuhodo advertising agency, and sold on newsstands, Barnbrook was attracted to the content focusing on social issues, but he was also intrigued by the format. The magazine is square and this is stressed in the design and type treatment. For example, Barnbrook rendered type based on the square (which he developed into the new font Coma). For the first issue, which explores avoiding money as the primary currency, the text reads “let’s exchange” complementing the ethereal, dramatic illustration. All imagery and stylistic devices Barnbrook uses in Kohkoku are cinematic—a selection of freeze-frame images used as an editorial device and, according to Barnbrook, “simulating the lack of interactivity of an audience slumped before a screen.” Barnbrook uses his advertising direction skills deliberately as he does his type treatments to “subvert.” Even the color choices Barnbrook makes are deliberately based on their emotional impact. For a second issue of Kohkoku with the topic of Earth Day the cover has a drawing of children playing ball (and the ball is the earth) with the words “Let’s Play” (featured on the cover of font 002).

Unsurprisingly, Barnbrook relished the opportunity to be a guest art director for Adbusters, the Vancouver, BC magazine known for its cultural critique. His task was to collaborate with publisher/editor-in-chief Kalle Lasn and the Adbusters staff to interpret the 64-spread, double issue with the theme of Design Anarchy. Lasn and Barnbrook met when Lasn gave a presentation at the Royal College of Art and they found much in common—including the editorial thrust of Adbusters, which takes on consumer culture. Working with the premise that designers can make a difference in shaping society and its values, this issue of the magazine underscores the role of design in defining culture. For Barnbrook this offered the opportunity to “get to see how Adbusters operates, and to try to bring their ideas together.” Lasn says that Barnbrook had a preliminary layout in advance before arriving to work with the staff to finalize the pages. “Jonathan worked 17 hours a day for 12 days. We wanted to have an issue that seamlessly flowed from beginning to end since it was the largest issue we have done,” Lasn says. The Barnbrook touch was to create his own anarchy with text, mixing type styles, emphasizing key words, and alternating subtleties with bravado. The issue did cause a stir, and as Lasn relates, the reader response was evenly divided between cheers and boos. Students, Lasn says, were appreciative of the design devices, but readers who regularly support the societal changes implicit in Adbusters did not respond favorably. Lasn feels that this kind of split is healthy and, therefore, the right response for a magazine intense on dialogue. Working on typefaces is a constant in Barnbrook’s life. He sketches letterforms compulsively and finds inspiration everywhere he travels and in everything he sees. And his new Virus fonts emerged from some of his recent projects as well his diverse interests. Barnbrook describes type design as “expressing a particular voice” which he wants to capture. [Click here for the article about Barnbrook’s Virus fonts and his process of designing type.] Barnbrook is anticipating a book of his own work to be published by Booth-Clibborn in which he intends to analyze and to explain his concepts and working process as the context for showing his designs. Kalle Lasn sums up Barnbrook as a designer, “He is an intense character with great seriousness about his work. He doesn’t work on anything he doesn’t believe in. He doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk.” Margaret Richardson is editor of font.		Details of spreads from Adbusters "Design Anarchy" issue. Detail of cover from the first issue of Kohkoku. Detail of a spread also from the first issue of Kohkoku. With the theme “Let’s Exchange” Barnbrook is suggesting not using money as the only means of acquiring goods and services. Barnbrook deliberately uses images to simulate a TV screen. “The effect was to suggest a lack of interactivity in front of a TV, an equivalent of being slumped into a chair.”
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