Anna-Therese Fowler: Famous Designers

There are several designers who have dramatically influenced the world of typography. Although many differentiate in age and time periods, they all have contributed a strong desire to change and create beautiful typography that impact one’s daily life. These designers include: Matthew Carter, Stefan Sagmeister, Armin Hoffman, Wolfgang Weingart, and Neville Brody.

Matthew Carter has spent his entire life pursuing and creating new typefaces, which have grown to become prominent world-wide. His father was a typographer, and when Matthew Carter decided to forsake his three years at Oxford for experience in the working industry; his father was there to support him. This simple act allowed Carter to pursue and expand his career, it did not limit his creativity to create and embrace modern typefaces. One can easily discover Carter’s talent by reviewing his list of accomplishments but Carter also expresses his passion for type, always supporting and encouraging the younger generations to explore the possibilities.

Famous Typefaces: Airport, Alisal, Auriga, Auriol, Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, Cascade Script, Century 725 (Boston Globe), Charter, Cochin, CRT Gothic,  Durham (US News and World Report), Elephant, F DeFace (FUSE), Fenway (Sports Illustrated), Galliard, Gando Ronde, Georgia (Microsoft), Helvetica Compressed, etc.

Stefan Sagmeister is truly a unique Graphic Design artist, always willing to surprise and shock with his designs. At first, Sagmeister had no intention of pursuing design rather he studied engineering. But during his time at university, he began to explore design through poster layouts and designs for the company Alphorn. Sagmeister decided to pursue design and eventually came to the United States to study. Sagmeister has pursued many jobs (typographer, designer, photographer, etc.) but he always stays true to himself, in other words; if he needs to challenge or perhaps amuse himself he will refuse certain jobs to keep an open time frame.

Armin Hoffman spent much of his career designing posters. He believed that this was the best way of communication, visually communicating an idea through a print. Hoffman was a believer in the Swiss International Style, which stressed a belief in an absolute and universal style of graphic design. The style of design created a goal of communication, practicing new techniques of photo typesetting, photomontage and experimental composition and heavily favored sans-serif typography. Hoffman was a groundbreaker designer, introducing and teaching techniques that have influenced design to this very day.

Wolfgang Weingart was most influential as a teacher and a design philosopher. Armin Hoffman appointed Weingart as a typography instructor at the Basel School of Design. Throughout his entire career he spent time traveling and lecturing throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia. In these lectures, he taught a new approach to typography that influenced the graphic design of the 1990s.

Neville Brody is a London born designer, He was quite experimental in nature with his work at the University, and was sadly met with criticism due to his untraditional methods. After school, he received an art director job with The Face Magazine, which allowed his name to become well known. He later formed his own design studio, Research Studios, which has enjoyed much success and spread internationally. Not only is Brody a designer, he is a typographer, designing more than twenty typefaces which include: FF Gothic, FF Harlem, FF Meta Plus, FF Typeface Four, etc.