06 JUNE 2012

MagNet 2012

Christian Schwartz will be delivering two lectures on type design for publications at MagNet 2012, an annual conference in Toronto held by Magazines Canada.

02 NOVEMBER 2011

DesignThinkers 2011

Christian Schwartz will be speaking at the Association of Registered Graphic Designers' 12th annual DesignThinkers Conference in Toronto, along with an impressive list of designers from all areas of graphic design. For more information please visit the DesignThinkers site.

26 AUGUST 2011

Lecture by Christian Schwartz at Les Rencontres internationales de Lure

Christian Schwartz will be speaking on "Obsessions in Type Design" at the 2011 Rencontres internationales de Lure, a weeklong conference on typography taking place the week of August 21-26 in Lurs, Alpes de Haute Provence, France. For more information, please visit the conference website (in French).

13 JUNE 2011

Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz in Australia: AGDA International Speakers Tour

13 June: Perth, WA
14 June: Adelaide, SA
15 June: Hobart, Tasmania cancelled
16 June: Melbourne, Victoria
17 June: Workshop in Melbourne
20 June: Sydney, NSW
21 June: Brisbane, Queensland
22 June: Canberra, ACT cancelled

Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz will be touring Australia in June, giving 7 talks and a workshop over 12 days. Their lecture will touch on a number of the projects they have collaborated on, and discuss how they came together to form Commercial Type.

For more information on exact time, locations, and ticket pricing, please visit AGDA's website.

10 JUNE 2011

Lecture by Paul Barnes at The Design Society, Singapore

Paul Barnes will be lecturing about his work at The Design Society in Singapore. Please visit The Design Society's website for more information and to make a booking.

20 APRIL 2012 | RELEASES

New release: 3 new widths of Guardian Sans Headline

Guardian Sans Headline has undergone a major expansion with the addition of three narrower widths: Narrow, Condensed, and X Condensed. Each is available in 9 weights with italics. Creating a condensed humanist sans serif is often a difficult proposition, as the round and friendly forms have a tendency to look squashed and ungainly. However, the subtle squareness of curves in Guardian Sans Headline allows the new widths to fit in naturally with the original design. Guardian Sans Headline is thoroughly unadorned, making it adaptible to many tasks, combining not just with Guardian Egyptian, but with a wide range of other typefaces as well. With 72 fonts now in total, Guardian Sans Headline has expanded beyond its newspaper roots, and is ideal for editorial design, corporate identities, signage systems, and general graphic design.

This family expansion has been expertly carried out by Commercial Type designer Berton Hasebe, under direction from Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz, who designed the rest of the family for The Guardian's major redesign in 2005. These new widths were first seen in Al Triviño's redesign of the regional newspapers for the Vocento group in Spain and in a redesign of Sydsvenskan in Malmö, Sweden.

Each of the three new widths is particularly well suited to its own set of uses. Graphic designers often need sans serifs which are compact enough to increase economy without feeling explicitly like a condensed typeface. Guardian Sans Headline Narrow is this sort of weight, particularly useful in corporate identities and signage programs. Headlines of all kinds usually have one thing in common: a lot to say with not enough space to say it in. Guardian Headline Sans Condensed solves this issue without looking cramped or squashed, keeping the same quiet, neutral tone of the normal width. The most condensed of the new Guardian Sans Headline widths, the X Condensed, exaggerates the subtle squareness of the original design, allowing it to maintain the humanist forms without sacrificing its economy. Particularly useful in editorial and newspaper situations, it truly turns the Guardian Sans Headline family into a complete workhorse. Please click here to see more.

10 APRIL 2012 | PRESS | BOOKS

Marian, Une collection de revivals from Ypsilon.éditeur

Marian is the subject of a new book from Ypsilon.éditeur in France. Written by Paul Barnes and translated into French by Sébastien Morlighem, this book is the first title in the publisher's new series, 1|1, in the "Bibliothèque typographique" collection. The book is 56 pages long, features Paul's essay in both English and French, is printed in 2 colors, and is profusely illustrated.

The following is the publisher's description of the book:
Designing typefaces in the digital age is not what it used to be. Marian, one of the most ambitious projects of British designer Paul Barnes, is emblematic of a revivalist approach that had become ‘rhizomatic’ and timeless rather than linear and respectful of chronology as it was for most of the twentieth century.
Through Marian, a collection of nine seriffed typefaces (roman & italic) suitable for titling and publishing, Barnes pays tribute to the old masters which inspired him (Granjon, Fournier, Baskerville, Bodoni…), whilst revitalising the principle of faithfulness to the original source. He describes which are the new means to do so, thanks to the present technical possibilities and to a bold concept : the reduction of each model to a thin, monolinear slab-serif typeface. A broad, modernist approach was adopted to distillate the essence of the form without depriving it of its historical value et of its original qualities.
The book comprises a well-illustrated essay written by Barnes, and a series of specimens showing each weight of Marian, set in an excerpt of a text written by, or about, each punchcutter that inspired it.

Preorders are available now, and the book will ship after 4 May. Please visit the publisher's site for more information or to place an order.

19 MARCH 2012 | PRESS

Interview in Eye 82

Editor in chief John Walters and creative director Simon Esterson sat down with Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz in London in November for a wide-ranging interview to be published in Eye magazine issue 82, winter 2012. Paul and Christian are delighted that one of Paúl Rivera's photographs of the Marian neon pieces from Thieves Like Us was selected for the cover.