Barry Spencer On Experimental Typeface Design

Barry Spencer is literally a doctor of typography, with an honours dissertation on the essence of latin letterforms and a doctoral thesis to back it up! Perhaps more importantly though, Barry is an avid experimenter and creator using typography as his canvas, challenging the very boundaries and questioning the very form of what makes a letterform. Barry is quoted as often making letters that may or may not look like letters. During our chat, we break open his experimental process behind making a typeface, how he uses each step and serendipitous turn as a jumping off point for the next project and using things like asking the question "What If?” to take things to the next level. Barry schools us on the importance of bringing a level of naivety to the work and much more in this episode. Introducing: Barry Spencer On Experimental Typeface Design.

Barry Spencer

barryspencerdesign.com.au

@speculatype

Links

Typograph.her

Glyphs

Wim Crouwel

p5.js

drawbot

DIA

David Pidgeon

James McCrae

Frank Chimero

Future Fonts

Designing Type Book

Quotes

"It's ok to play, it's ok to experiment, it's ok to try something out, not knowing what the answer will be."

"It will force me to think, as much as I can, to challenge what I expect to happen."

"You're not learning anything unless you're in an uncomfortable position."

"Do it the right way first, so you know what you're doing when you screw things up!"

"I always try to move away from the should and move into the we could do this."

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Original Theme Music

by Devin Luke - devinlukemusic.com

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@onprocesspodcast

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