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companies, in situations where secrecy is a huge factor.” PSY/OPS may create designs under heavy-duty NDAs (nondisclosure agreements), in which case the employees of the foundry are not permitted even to discuss who they are currently working for, let alone what they are working on, or put the finished product in the PSY/OPS firm portfolio. “Not all projects require that level of confidentiality, but I do wish we could show more of what we’ve done over the years.” Aufuldish has a less cloak-and-dagger but equally vivid metaphor for working with clients: “There are times when taking clients through the design process is like leading them through therapy. They’re working out the issues of their company through whatever the project is. The visual representation of who a company is can’t be executed unless they know themselves. So I help them figure that out.”
Analog Versus Digital
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The history of type design can be easily separated into two eras: the analog and the digital. The ability to design and reproduce type with software programs, and to market one’s work on the Internet, has left no aspect of the industry unchanged. Before the digital era, the typical person on the street didn’t think much about typography or logo design, but today it’s quite common to see mainstream news articles— or a big public uproar, as we saw last December with the unveiling of the new (and scrapped soon thereafter) University of California logo—about the new look of a familiar brand. Aufuldish recalls, “When I started working in design in the 1980s, there were literally no computers out there that visually oriented people would want to use.” With the proliferation of personal computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, all the pent-up hunger for new ideas in the type world was released as metal fonts were adapted for digital use, and new fonts were invented that never existed as metal. Today it’s a virtual renaissance for designers working in type. They’re free from the confines of paste-ups and agents. Custom-everything is in vogue. Clients understand what branding means and are hungry for a dose of it. And as people increasingly recognize the active emotional impact of type, the type designer’s work gains in prestige and is better appreciated.
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01–02. James Edmondson, custom lettering and illustrations. 03. James Edmondson, work in progress for Luxigon L.A. 04. James Edmondson, notecards for Fifty Five Hi’s. 05–08. Daniel Amara, CCA thesis book spreads. 09. Daniel Amara, work in progress on Lutetia, a revival font originally designed in 1925 by Jan Van Krimpen.
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