The Rational Ornamentalist: Marian Bantjes

The Rational Ornamentalist: Marian Bantjes

1

2

Indestructible (before), 2006

Indestructible (after), 2006

“Everyth I do, I do

for

love.

hing

arian Bantjes has no issue with incorporating what is personal into what is commercial to create new and innovative typography. Bantjes, born in 1963, is a designer, typographer, illustrator, and writer. She spent the first half of her career as a typesetter and continued on that path for ten years.

In that time, she became a well-known graphic designer.

She left the firm to pursue her

own interests and style of work that she had become internationally recognized for. She left the field of book typography to join the Canadian design studio Digitopolis in 1994, where she flourished as a graphic designer there until 2003.

In the years since, she has worked for Pentagram, Stefan Sagmeister, AIGA, The Guardian and The New York Times, among others. Describing herself as a

.’’

Typecon Poster, 2007

“graphic artist,” she develops intricate and completely customized type for her clients. Back when Marian Bantjes was a graphic and type designer, she claimed that her work was “clean, simple, and unimaginative…her book training was bookish.”

5

Valentines, 2005

Valentines, 2006

Valentines, 2010

Valentines, 2011

Valentines, 2014

Valentines, 2012 Valentines, 2013

6

Valentines since 2005

On a flight into New York in 2005, Marian Bantjes had an epiphany:

“Everything I do, I do for love.” Money wasn’t her primary motivation to make work, anymore. She no longer kept track of the time it took her to make anything, she merely enjoyed what she was creating. She turned this phrase into an illustration (see Fig. 5) to send to people on a day that they don’t typically receive mail (as opposed to every other holiday): Valentine’s Day. She has continued this every year since.

7

Want It!

Saks 5th Avenue

After Michael Bierut had designed turning words into objects, or an the new Saks Fifth Avenue

abstract expression of an adjective.

identity, he hired Bantjes to work

By customizing the ascenders

on the season’s campaign entitled

and descenders of a customized

“Want It!” Here, she was given

typeface she successfully designed

license to combine illustration

the 18 trend items of the season with

and typography; quite literally

flourishing lines and simple forms.

Saks Season Campaign, 2007

8

The Music Room, 2011

Fig. 13. Varoom: Style, 2014

Fig. 12. Seduction Poster, 2006

& other commercial work

9

“Am I

successful? Ye In terms

of how I

feel ab

what I make

why I do it.”

es.

bout and

”

Varoom: Relationships 2012

antjes found,

Her decorative influences run the

embraced, and reveled in the

gamut from Middle Eastern to

Baroque style. Now, she makes

African to Asian, and she can shift

exactingly complex custom

from interpreting or mimicking

lettering that has made her into

one to another and combining a

a kind of “Michelangelo for the

few with ease. “It’s really due to

21st century’s decorative lettering

whim and what I’m interested in

renaissance.”

exploring or experimenting with

Her style emerged in 1996. But its

at that time,” she says about her

origins, she states, are a bit of a

mannerisms, emphasizing that it is

mystery, even to her. “There’s

not “the more detailed the better,”

nothing in my life or the life of

usually it’s whatever is the more

my family that was in the least

challenging. “I’m particularly fond

bit Baroque or patterned or

of systems, I’m interested in using

ornamented. I can find in my

new techniques.”

travel to exotic countries in my 20s, India, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Bali, and Africa, that are the possible seeds of my interest in intense decoration.” Although she opened her own design firm, specializing in book design in 1994, she closed shop in 2003 to begin experimenting on her own.

11

12

Fortune: Money Alphabet 2013

The National: Orpheum 2011

13

Designed and written by Stephanie Henry Bantjes, Marian. Marian Bantjes - Pretty Pictures.

London: Thames & Hudson, 2013. http://bantjes.com/work/category/portfolio/.

Composed in Athelas and Athelas Bold typefaces Designed by Veronika Burian and Jose Scaglione in 2008 Printed onto Hammermill 60# text.

Copyright Š 2017 Stephanie Henry, Portland, Maine Maine College of Art

14