Who Inspired You?

[Mycroft]

Who inspired you onto the path of typography? 

For me, It was Jonathan Barnbrook. I was quite captivated by his work, and the morality behind it. 

[Kathrinvdm]

Wow, that’s quite a question … :)

Well, with me, fascination for typography started very early and very basic. As soon as I could read, as a little girl, I was reading almost everything that I could reach. Children’s books of course, but also each and every sign outside, every packaging in our household, magazines, newspapers, EVERYTHING. Reading in that sense didn’t just mean to (more or less) understand the content, but also meant that I noticed the kind of typefaces that had been used on – for example – a bubble bath bottle. I was wondering, how tiny the text on the backside of that bottle was and how many letters one can stuff on such a small bottle sticker. I liked the shapes of specific handwritten letters and different kinds of written text – long time before I knew of the existence of something called “typography”. Later I cut lots of stuff I liked out of interior design magazines and glued it nicely into my sketchbooks – long time before I had an idea what “layouting” means. 

Later, during my first internship at a design company, I received a gift from my colleagues – a book about David Carson. I honestly really thought that stuff was more than weird – I spontaneously didn’t like much what I saw. But at least I got the idea, that this kind of design must have a specific meaning, even if I didn’t understand it immediately.  

When I, about a year later, started my studies in communication design and illustration, I joined a typography class at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. And then the magic of typography really got me: I was very very lucky to be taught for five years by Jovica Veljovic. With his very dry sense of humor and endless knowledge of calligraphy, typography and it’s history he got all my attention for his lessons. That was stunning, a whole new world! Only years later I really understood how much I learned during those semesters. Six month of lead typesetting were also part of his class, a fantastic experience, although I with lead typesetting at times was battling hard with my patience … ;-)

Yes, it was definitely Jovica Veljovic, who got me onto the path of typography. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2015 by Kathrinvdm