TOBIAS FRERE

Let’s now dive into the type designer behind Gotham, Tobias FrereJones. In 1970, Frere-Jones (pictured below and to the right) was born in New York into a family of writers and printers. Being surrounded by this taught him from a young age the importance and power of text and eventually led to his passion for letter forms. In 1987 at age 16 he was prized a winner for the alphabet design contest from the type shop where he was stated to have a “promising future in graphics”. In 1992 Frere-Jones received his B.F.A (a Bachelor of Fine Arts) from RISD (The Rhode Island School of Design). After college Frere-Jones got a job at the Font Bureau in Boston where he worked for 7 years and eventually gained the position as senior designer. During his time at the Font Bureau, he created typefaces such as Interstate, Poynter oldstyle, and Garage Gothic. In addition to all his contributions to the company he also made 3 fonts; FB Reactor, Fibonacci, and Microphone for Fuse (which is a journal for experimental design). Over his career, Frere-Jones has designed over 500 typefaces for retail publication, custom clients, and experimental Research. Frere-Jones states that he aims for a wide range in his work — he feels comfortable with working with traditional and grungy display type. Since 1996 FrereJones has been a part of the faculty at the Yale School of Art where he teaches typeface design. In 1999 Frere-Jones left the Font Bureau where he then began working with Johnathan Hoefler at Hoefler & Frere-Jones (Now known as Hoefler & co.) In 2006 he became the first American to receive the Gerrit Noordzij Award, presented by the Royal Academy of The Hague in honor of his special contributions to typography.

Today, Frere-Jones runs his own type foundry Frere-Jones in New York, where he continues to make original typefaces for retail licensing and custom clients. What can’t type designer FrereJones do? Today, Frere-Jones runs his own type foundry Frere-Jones in New York, where he continues to make original typefaces for retail licensing and custom clients. What can’t type designer Frere-Jones do? Today, Frere-Jones runs his own type foundry Frere-Jones in New York, where he continues to make original typefaces for retail licensing and custom clients. What can’t type designer Frere-Jones do?

Tobias Frere-Jones: Break Things Deliberately, May 2016. 99uAdobe, https://99u.adobe.com/videos/53989/tobias-frere-jones-break-things-deliberately

FUSE 94 leaflet, 1994. 8Faces, https://blog.8faces.com/ post/11140984938/fuse-leaflet

Tobias Frere-Jones, December 2018. Type Directors Club, https://www.tdc.org/profiles/tobias-frere-jones/

Man, oh man do we have some drama to discuss. We’re talking some seriously shady business! But let’s start on a lighter note and discuss the amazing works during their partnership. Frere-Jones left the Font Bureau and joined forces with Johnathan Hoefler. During Frere-Jones time with Hoefler they did work for companies like Wall Street, the Whitney Museum (see below) , Martha Stewart (see below), Nike, Pentagram, GQ, Esquire, and the New York Times. However, things did not end well between the two (Dun dun dun!) and Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones got into “a bit” of drama. Sometime in 2014, the two became part of a $20 million legal battle over the ownership of the company. It was actually FrereJones who decided to file this lawsuit. This lawsuit claimed that Hoefler promised Frere-Jones a 50 percent stake in the company – which he then failed to deliver. So, Frere-Jones sued Hoefler for damages of what he said to be worth $20 million. Frere-Jones’ claim that was made to the Supreme Court stated the reasoning for this lawsuit to be “the most profound treachery and sustained exploitation of friendship, trust and confidence” by Hoefler. Apparently, Frere-Jones claims that he and Hoefler made a verbal agreement in 1999 to become equal partners in a new type foundry. As part of the proposal, the claim says Frere-Jones brought a series of fonts to the new company, including Whitney and Gotham and he deserves to be compensated for (YES!). Frere-Jones says he then repeatedly asked Hoefler to transfer half of the ownership of the company to him. And at one stage, he alleges, Hoefler responded by saying, ‘Stop it. I’m working on it. Stop harassing me’. Was he really working on it though? Wait till you hear what he did next. In October 2013, instead of sharing ownership to Frere-Jones. Hoefler instead transferred HFJ shares to his wife! Making the couple 100 percent owners of the company! (Geez!) Talk about seriously shady business. After a while, the Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry released a statement saying that FrereJones left the company, and it would from that time forward be known as just Hoefler & Co. This statement basically suggested that everything said by Frere-Jones was made up and that Hoefler&co. would remain an amazing place to work. Not much else was heard about the lawsuit after this. However, today documents show the lawsuit between Hoefler and Frere-Jones was settled out of court. And all other details of the settlement are strictly confidential. Did Frere-Jones get paid what he deserved? Maybe? The truth is we’ll never really know but we’re sure this was a real learning moment for Frere-Jones and he’s much more careful with his business endeavors now. And truth is, he seems to be doing a lot better nowadays anyways (yes, we’re throwing the shade right back at you Johnathan). However, today documents show the lawsuit between Hoefler and Frere-Jones was settled out of court. And all other details of the settlement are strictly confidential. Did Frere-Jones get paid what he deserved? Maybe? The truth is we’ll never really know but we’re sure this was a real learning moment for FrereJones and he’s much more careful with his business endeavors now. And truth is, he seems to be doing a lot better nowadays anyways (yes, we’re throwing the shade right back at you Johnathan). However, today documents show the lawsuit between Hoefler and Frere-Jones was settled out of court. And all other details of the settlement are strictly confidential. Did Frere-Jones get paid what he deserved? Maybe? The truth is we’ll never really know but we’re sure this was a real learning moment for Frere-Jones and he’s much more careful with his business endeavors now. And truth is, he seems to be doing a lot better nowadays anyways

“Font Men” The Work of Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones, 2014. Booooooom, https://www.booooooom. com/2014/03/12/font-men-work-jonathan-hoefler-tobiasfrere-jones/

Whitney Museum of American Art MendezNYC, https://mendeznyc.com/Whitney-Museum-Of-American-Art

Kenney, Nancy. The Whitney Museum of American Art, February 2021. The Art Newspaper,https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/02/22/whitney-lays-off-15-more-staff-membersciting-extremely-low-attendance

Typography Partners Part Ways in Money Fight, 2014. The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/ business/media/in-dispute-typography-partners-part-ways. html

Font Gods Hoefler & Frere-Jones Split in Nasty Corporate Divorce, 2014. Gawker, https://www.gawker.com/ font-gods-hoefler-frere-jones-split-in-nasty-corporat-1503534833