Typeradio Podcast

At the What Design Can Do-conference we had a talk with Tirso Frances, director and co-founder (with Ron Faas) of Utrecht based design studio DieTwee. They started DieTwee in their 2nd year of art-school, believing they had the wrong teachers and therefore felt the need to organize something for theirselves. Now, 24 years later, the studio had grown from two up to 30 people, and they are revitalizing the studio’s strategy by bringing in a new art-director and opening discussion. Tirso shares his dislike for design-pitches with us and gives a nice insight in the studio’s client history through the years. We felt the need to ask him about this intangible Utrecht’s design flavour that’s been going on for years. He answers and tells us how the city of Utrecht has affected the studio design- and clientwise. Recorded at What Design Can Do 2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. DieTwee :: What Design Can Do :: File Download (26:41 min / 31 MB)

We talked to the Irish born Amsterdam-based Stone Twins, consisting of twin brothers Declan and Garech Stone. We obviously talk about their roots and their creative partnership; after 20 years of living and working in Holland, are they Irish or Dutch Designers? They use the design for the Dutch Post Office as an interesting example about how Dutch Design has developed in the last 20 years. In the role of head of the Man & Communication-department at the Design Academy Eindhoven (which they resigned to in june 2013) they see themselves as cheerleaders, cheering and provoking their students towards a reaction of any kind. They want them to be prepared for the real world, that needs relevant designers with a realistic attitude and creative ideas, more dialogue, less monologue. Recorded at What Design Can Do 2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Stone Twins :: Stone Twins columns :: File Download (24:33 min / 28 MB)

What design can do? That was a question asked to Ina Jurga of WASH United, an organization fighting for safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for all people around the world. One of their goals is to make toilets more sexy, we ask her how design can actually help achieving this. Her lifetime evolvement in this organization, started as a student, triggered by an ecological focussed teacher. Ina tells us why WASH United connects football to their activities and how lack of hygiene isn’t only a health problem but an economical problem as well. Recorded at What Design Can Do 2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. WASH United :: Ina Jurga at WDCD 2012 :: File Download (15:31 min / 18 MB)

Inbetween the white noise in this interview (for which we apologise), you’ll find the nice words of Colombian graphic designer Esteban Ucros, who dedicates his Popular de Lujo blog to painted advertising he finds all over the streets of his hometown Bogotá. He didn’t start the project out of political reasons, just the will to focus on the daily but nonetheless inspirational stuff that is so easily taken for granted. The blog functions as a platform to present and preserve the unknown street artists that have been around for years. Working in the corporate branding world himself, we asked him if he ever had the chance to combine the two and how he thinks the project will evolve in the future. Recorded at What Design Can Do 2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Popular de Lujo :: Popular de Lujo Facebook :: Esteban’s WDCD 2012 presentation :: File Download (16:12 min / 19 MB)

We sat down with Harmen Liemburg, Dutch silkscreen wizard with a keen eye for color and detail. Beside his work as a visual designer and design-writer, he also runs the silkscreen workshop at the Rietveld Academy, together with his old teacher Kees Maas. He tells us why he loves the craft of silkscreening so much and how he started his career as a cartographer. He has a big fascination for both the United States and Japan, which he tries to visit as often as he can. No wonder his design heroes are Japanese and American as well. We end this talk with the question how he would like to be remembered, and he replies with an interesting paradox about work, life and time. Recorded at What Design Can Do 2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Harmen Liemburg :: What Design Can Do presentation video :: Rietveld Academy :: File Download (21:56 min / 25 MB)

Almost all designers must have heard of the It’s Nice That-blog, online since april 2007. We had a talk with co-founder Will Hudson, who started the blog as a personal visual bookmarking-space, because he was just bad with names. We think that’s a valid reason. Will’s partner Alex Bec joined in 2008, and since then the blog has grown into a company with a firm team of seven people art-directing, publishing and curating. We asked Will some spot-on questions about how they finance the blog, how they select and what’s new for the future. And he explains us why there are no comments allowed on the blog. Recorded at Facing Pages 2012, Arnhem, The Netherlands. It's Nice That :: It's Nice That - publications :: It's Nice That - twitter :: It's Nice That for ASOS  :: File Download (17:30 min / 20 MB)

In this interview Simon Esterson, art director and co-owner of Eye Magazine, kicks off with an impressive list of rituals and superstitiousness. Simon continues about how perfection may be a dangerous thing for designers. We would like to know if four issues of Eye per year is enough and how they select content. He gives us a beautiful insight in how he balances every day as an art director, owner, paper lover and design-geek. In his extensive career as a freelance magazine and newspaper consultant (he doesn’t call himself a graphic designer), he found out that designing a newspaper is quite similar to building up a huge lego-set and that ads aren’t just undesirable pages in a magazine. Recorded at Facing Pages 2012, Arnhem, The Netherlands. Eye Magazine :: Simon Esterson Associates :: File Download (36:50 min / 42 MB)

We had a talk with graphic designer Rejane Dal Bello at the What Design Can Do-conference in Amsterdam. This strong visual designer never stops working, drawing and visualizing ideas. We asked her why she left her home country Brasil to study in New York and The Netherlands. She tells us that all of her decisions regarding life and design are based upon the ability to develop herself and to add something to the world. This is the reason she doesn’t mind working pro-bono for projects that matter, like developing a visual identity for a Peruvian Children’s hospital. We also talk about her heroes, teaching and if she calls herself a Dutch designer after working at Studio Dumbar for 8 years. She tells us life happens and that she can never really plan ahead, recently that brought her to work in London at Wolff Olins. Recorded at the What Design Can Do 2012, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Rejane dal Bello :: Paz Holandesa - children's hospital project :: Studio Dumbar ::

Laura Meseguer is a Barcalonese type designer, known for her custom lettering and joyful typefaces. She started to play with letters at a very early age in her father’s letterpress-company. In the early 90’s she moved on towards playing with digital letters and started her own foundry called Type-Ø-Tones. She definitely became a type designer after studying at the post-graduate Type]Media course in the Hague. We talk about her typo-mags series and how this project came together. And she shares her views on how type design is evolving in an age where everyone with a computer has the tools to create a typeface. Recorded at Facing Pages 2012, Arnhem, The Netherlands. Laura Meseguer :: Type-Ø-Tones :: Laura's fonts on MyFonts :: File Download (23:12 min / 27 MB)

At the Facing Pages festival 2012 we talked with organizer Joost van der Steen, who’s quite an enterprising person. This interaction designer is partner in design studio OK Parking – together with graphic designer William van Giessen. To celebrate the first birthday of a blog they were keeping up, they surprised their contributors with the publication of OK Periodical magazine, which eventually led to a series of eight issues. Driven by their love for independent magazines, on top of that they decided to organize the OK festival in 2010, about independent magazines powered by crowdsourcing. We talk with Joost about all his initiatives and we ask him if he has some advise for people who want to start up their own magazine. We end the talk by reflecting some nice lectures that were given at the first edition of the festival. Recorded at Facing Pages 2012, Arnhem, The Netherlands. OK Parking :: OK Periodicals :: Facing Pages :: File Download (17:31 min / 20

We had a talk with Charlotte Cheetham, founder of the Manystuff-blog which she initially started in 2006 because her boyfriend studied graphic design. Being a communication-student herself she was intrigued with graphic design, especially books, and started to collect and publish projects and designers that she liked. Besides updating the blog almost daily, she also curates exhibitions and researches the field. She finds it necessary to create this extra dimension to her work, next to the flatness of a screen. We asked her some big questions about the changing and maybe generalizing world of graphic design and the way different countries approach design-education. She shares her opinion about the matter with us, even as her plans for the future. Recorded at Facing Pages 2012, Arnhem, The Netherlands. Manystuff :: Charlotte on Tumblr :: File Download (19:42 min / 23 MB)

During a year of teaching English in the Czech republic, the Eastern European typography on book covers caught Gabriele Wilson’s eye. When she came back to the States she started a study Graphic Design at Parsons. Nowadays she’s a teacher there and runs her own design studio in New York focused on book cover design. We asked her if she sees trends in book design, not only in the visual sense but also in the way designers are approached for jobs. She shares her extensive experience with us. The journey towards the design is the most interesting part of the job for her. She loves to read the manuscripts and to do research about the diverse subjects of her projects. We think this kind of explains why she secretly wants to work for the FBI. Recorded at Tÿpo St.Gallen 2011, Switzerland. Gabriele Wilson Design :: book cover archive :: Parson’s New School for design :: File Download (19:43 min / 23 MB)

In Sankt Gallen we had a talk with none other than Jost Hochuli, the legendary Swiss graphic designer and typographer. He is an expert in book design and also well known for his writing. In his long and exceptional career he got the opportunity to study and work with a lot of design legends, such as Adrian Frutiger. We want to know all about it! He explains how he sees book design as a ‘Gesammt Kunstwerk’ and what he thinks about badly designed books. He shares his remarkable career with us, including how he cofounded the VGS, the Sankt Gallen publishing house. And how he (being almost 80 years old) only recently got the opportunity to actually teach in his own field. Recorded at Tÿpo St.Gallen 2011, Switzerland. VGS - St.Gallen publishing company :: Jost Hochuli at Hyphen Press :: Typeface designs Allegra / Alena :: ‘Detail in typography’ book review :: File Download (36:41 min / 42 MB)

The busy Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swiss Miss) had a talk with us at her birthplace Sankt Gallen. Although she was born, raised and educated in Switzerland, she found in New York a place that actually adapts to her speed. She is the curator and composer of the swissmiss-blog, that started out as a personal visual bookmark archive in 2005, but reaches more than a million viewers per month nowadays! Her blog has so much impact that she can actually launch an upcoming designer by the exposure of a single post. We are wondering if this acquired power makes her nervous and if there are certain Swiss things that she misses in the States. In the end we talk about the other concepts, products and brands she created, that originated from her need to be her own client. Recorded at Tÿpo St.Gallen 2011, Switzerland. Swiss Miss blog :: Teuxdeux app :: Creative Mornings :: Tattly :: Studio Mates :: File Download (17:45 min / 20 MB)

We had a critical and insightful talk with Dan Perjovschi, visual artist from Romania, about the role of art in society. He is well known for covering museum walls with his humoristic yet critical political cartoons. The fall of communism in Romania gave him the freedom to travel, but did it also take a part of his artistic identity with it?  He shares his need for changing perspectives in this materialistic society and how it took him ten year to move his work from paper to the wall. His need for perspectives eventually led to a retrospective exhibition of his work, together with his wife who’s also an artist. Did it bring him what he was looking for? Recorded at Integrated 2011, Antwerp, Belgium. Dan Perjovschi :: TEDxBucharest talk by Dan :: Thoughts for aces - free downloads of a set of drawings :: File Download (39:56 min / 46 MB)

This is the second time we meet Martin Tiefenthaler, who runs his own studio, teaches ‘typography and semiotics’ in Vienna and is the co-founder of the Typografische Gesellschaft Austria (TGA). Six years ago he just set up an educational system regarding typography, now he shares the results of this first harvest with us. We ask him why he thinks he’s a good teacher, but a bad designer.  He tells us how he was always into type, while he thought he was into art and how a book totally changed his life. At the end of this interview he leaves us with an untold story about his statement that typography is actually a political issue. We should start planning a third interview with him soon. Recorded at Tÿpo St.Gallen 2011, Swiss. ID IID IIIDesign :: Typografische Gesellschaft Austria :: die Grafische  :: File Download (20:51 min / 24 MB)

Graphic artist and illustrator Henning Wagenbreth shares his story about growing up behind the German Wall in East-Berlin. Being a student in this period might be where his love for the artistic dark side comes from. When the wall fell he had the chance to study in Paris for a year, where he was amazed that there was more to comics than just Asterix and Obelix! Nowadays his handwriting is starting a life on its own as the typeface FF Prater,  we ask him how he feels about that. He tells us about his observative mind that made him save all the African scam-emails he received over the years and how he refers to them as modern fairytales. Recorded at Integrated 2011, Antwerp, Belgium. Henning Wagenbreth :: FF Prater :: Cry for help, scam emails from Africa :: File Download (29:53 min / 34 MB)

Frederik Berlaen is a multi-talented Belgian type designer, programmer and teacher, who just fell in love with scripting while attending the postgraduate Type & Media course at the KABK in The Hague. He didn’t graduate with a typeface, but an application that eventually set the foundation for his recently released typescripting program, Robofont. We ask him what drove him to create his own tools. He tells us how he misses drawing, how scripting can save a designer in several ways and even makes a confession on Typeradio about his thoughts on sharing. Recorded at Integrated 2011, Antwerp, Belgium. Type my type  :: Robofont  :: File Download (16:23 min / 19 MB)

In this second part of the Paul Sahre interview, he tells us how being a teacher gives him a lot of inspiration, which is his selfish reason of being a teacher in the first place. He thinks the digitalization of the design culture will actually give the traditional way of the tangible graphic design a huge boost; few, but happier designers! We ask him about the crazy deadlines for NY Times illustrations and he tells us about the importance of setting rules for graphic design. Humour is something you can find in a lot of Paul’s work, so we ask him how serious he takes himself as a designer and ofcourse: how he would like to be remembered. Recorded at Integrated 2011, Antwerp, Belgium. O.O.P.S. :: I.L.L.O.O.P.S. :: File Download (21:41 min / 25 MB)

This is the first part of an amusing talk with American graphic designer Paul Sahre, well known for his book cover designs and illustrations for the NY Times. When we asked him about his earliest memory of graphic design, he shares a story about his mother and a scary ink drawing of a demon beast that he drew when he was around 12 years old. Being a parent himself, he tells us how this is changing his way of working as a designer and how it affected his traveling. We were curious if he actually reads all the books he’s designing covers for and if he thinks there will be any book covers left to design in the future. Recorded at Integrated 2011, Antwerp, Belgium. O.O.P.S. :: I.L.L.O.O.P.S. :: Fargo Rock City book cover :: File Download (26:16 min / 30 MB)