What the Rest of the Alphabet Looks Like

What the

restof

alphabet

the

looks like

Works by Andrew Byrom

Andrew Byrom was born in Liverpool, England in 1971. At three years old he and his family moved to Barrow, known for its ship-building, in Northern England. He dropped out of school at the age of sixteen and pursued a four year apprenticeship in the local shipyard. Once finished with his apprenticeship he sought a career in design and left his job to enroll at Cumbria Institute of Art and Design. He then moved to London to study at the University of East London. After university, in 1996 Byrom worked briefly in the design department of Routledge, a leading academic book publisher.

Byrom opened his own design studio and worked for various clients such as Penguin Books, The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, The Industrial Design Centre, Time Out Online and The Guardian Newspaper. Around this time he also began teaching graphic design at Croydon College.

In 1998 he accepted teaching positions at The University of Luton and Central Saint. Martins. Byrom moved to the United States in 2000 to teach at Northern Illinois University.

Some years later he moved to Long Beach to take an Associate Professor position at California State University.

Header Image: Interiors Typeface Prototype Round Image: Portrait of Andrew Byrom

1

2

Image: Experimental Typeface from rubber tea holder Side Image: Rubber tea holder

Byrom is now known as a typographic conceptualist – a sculptor by any other name – who creates “experimental” typefaces out of any everyday object you can imagine. Byrom has produced typefaces out of Band-Aids, drinking straws, steel railings and neon lights.

He has also turned some of these typfaces into furniture, bathroom fixtures and kites.

Byrom sees type in virtually everything, and anywhere. For instance, a plain wooden chair he found in the street is viewed to him as the lowercase “h.”

“At some point I wondered what the rest of this alphabet would look like.”

Thus began the design of a typeface family and a physical arrangement of “type furniture” that he called Interiors.

3

Interiors Interiors started as a two-dimensional alphabet made by pasting shapes into Adobe Illustrator and later into Fontographer.

But the final letters, which were ultimately constructed three-dimensionally with tubular steel, became full-scale furniture frames.

“Because the underlying design concept is typographical, the end result becomes almost freestyle furniture design.” Byrom elaborates, “Letters like m, n, o, b and h can be viewed as simple tables and chairs, but other letters, like e, g, a, s, t, v, x and z, become – when viewed as furniture – more abstract.”

Building things has been hardwired into Byrom’s lifestyle since a very young age.

Combining that with a background of studying conventional design enables the artist to explore unconventional methods.

“My work does not recreate existing typefaces in three dimensions. Instead, I allow the constraints of materials – and the limitations of creating physical structures with these materials – to help guide me toward new typographic forms.” Byrom follows classic typographic principles, like x-height or baseline, but not to the look or style of printed typefaces. “I believe this is an important distinction and is what makes working in 3-D unique.”

Above Image: Interiors Prototype

4

Side Image: Interiors Typeface Prototype Background Image: Interiors Typeface Prototype

5

Interiors Light

Byrom works like most type designers, producing a set of characters in a system without knowing where they’ll end up. “I work in three dimensions so as to force myself to find new forms. I produce these designs and afterward they get used by others.”

6

Grab Me

“The New York Times Magazine used the Grab-Me hand-rail design, Du Magazine used the Interiors Light design and, most recently, Sagmeister Inc. used the Letter-Box-Kites in a TV ad.

“I always design a full alphabet set, so my work functions in the same manner as most typefaces.”

Like any type designer, I want my letters to be arranged by others for their own needs. These communications may well be photographs (flattening the work back onto the page), but they might also be arranged in a built environment, attached to a wall, or flying in the sky!”

Although he works with physical materials in large spaces, Byrom still keeps readability in high regards. He further distinguishes what he does from other 3-D type conceptualists, like Stefan Sagmiester or Oded Ezer, whose final pieces are photographed images. Byrom insists that the result of his work is the actual physical object – the sculpture – like his work Grab-Me, made from bathroom safety railings that are fastened to a tiled wall.

Side Image: Interiors Light Prototype Background Image: Grab-MeTypeface Prototype

7

A brief interview with Art Design Institute

Why did you choose graphic design as your profession?

Originally I intended to study to be an illustrator.

While at university I was introduced to graphic design and I became passionate about typography.

What would you do if you were not a graphic designer? Why? I’d like to work as an architect or a furniture designer. I’d like to make things that are useful and helpful in people’s lives.

How is your normal working condition? Do you like it? Why? I have a small office in the Art Department of California State University Long Beach. I use this office as my studio as I am able to collaborate with other departments on campus and talk to students about my work while helping them with theirs.

8

Byrom now divides his time between teaching, designing for various clients, and spending time with his sons, Auden and Louis.

He has recently been commissioned to design typefaces and type treatments for The New York Times Magazine, Vogue Tyres, McGraw-Hill and Turner Classic Movies. His design work has been featured in Creative Review, Print, Dwell, Architectural Record and in several graphic design books including; G1: New Dimensions in Graphic Design, New Typographic Design, Type Addicted, American Corporate Identity and the AIGA Annual 2004.

His work has been exhibited in design venues across the US including The National Design Centre in New York and has been recognized with a Certificates of Excellence from the AIGA and The Type Directors Club as well as ongoing professional consulting. Byrom is currently working on several new 3D typeface designs and a series of ex perimental type based children’s stories.

Header Image: Interiors Typeface Prototype Round Image: Byrom and Family holding Kite Prototype Background Image: Interiors Typeface Prototype

9

Bibliography The 3D Type Book, FL@33. www.adicaa.org tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com AndrewByrom.com *All Photos made possible by AndrewByrom.com

Designed by Elisabeth Connolly Printed and bound by Elisabeth Connolly Composed in Cooper Std Black Italic by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1921, Helvetica Neue Light developed at D. Stempel AG in 1983, Orator Std Medium by John Scheppler in 1962.

Maine College of Art, 2013 Graphic Design 102