Jonathan Barnbrook and his studio have been active since 1990, working across a broad range of disciplines including graphic design, industrial design, typeface design and film. Barnbrook Design is based in Soho, London and consists of three designers and a coordinator, originating from England, Japan and Brazil. They are Jonathan Barnbrook, Elle Kawano, Pedro Inoue and Marcus McCallion.

The studio divides its time between commercial work on an international basis for museums and cultural institutions and non-commercial projects. One of Barnbrook Design's most visible forms of activity is in the world of typeface design where they have extended a socio-political view to this often quietly traditional world. Producing typefaces based on historical forms but with a very contemporary subversive influence and titled in an appropriately confrontational manner. Typefaces with names such as 'Manson' (American serial-killer), Exocet (French missile) and Bastard (English swearword) have garnered both praise and criticism for the highlighting of the relationship of words to the letterforms that represent them.

Non-commercial collaborations include art directing and producing work with 'Adbusters' the leading activist magazine. The studio also puts great effort into developing and producing work which highlights political and social injustices that are offered for free and without copyright restrictions on the studio's website. Recently the studio has increasingly taken part in exhibitions of specially commissioned artworks.

Commercial collaborations include major corporate identities for Roppongi Hills, the largest post war development in Tokyo, and Mori Art Museum, a new internationally-based contemporary art museum also located in Tokyo. In Britain, Barnbrook Design had become very well known as a result of collaboration with major figures in the British art scenes such as the Saatchi Gallery and Damien Hirst, for whom he designed his book 'I Want To Spend The Rest of My Life, Everywhere with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now' which won a host of top design awards. Barnbrook Design also works in the commercial film world, again winning many awards for their motion graphics work.

Barnbrook Design and Virus Fonts

This talk will take place at Stroud Valleys Artspace: 4 John Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2HA. Please see their website for directions etc.

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For nearly 20 years Swifty’s prolific output of record sleeves, magazines, logos, title sequences, fonts and more has gained him an international reputation for well crafted graphic design work.

One of the true British graphic originators of our time, his work has been hugely influential in music and youth culture since he started out in the late 1980’s. Fresh from art school he landed a job at The Face magazine under the watchful eye of Neville Brody, and later art directed its sister publication Arena for nearly a year.

Since 1989 he has been art director of the highly acclaimed ‘Straight No Chaser’ magazine which has proved to be a brilliant vehicle for his unique fonts and graphic sensibility. In 1990 he set up ‘Swifty Typografix’ and for the next 5 years designed hundreds of club flyers for London clubs dj’s and promoters like Gilles Peterson, Somethin’ Else and the Fridge in Brixton. Heavily tapped into the music scene at this time, Swifty designed the logos and identity for the influential label ‘Talkin Loud’ (A&R’d by Gilles Peterson) and was designing landmark record sleeves for bands such as the ‘Young Disciples’, ‘Incognito’ and Galliano. He designed the famous ‘Mo Wax’ logo and set up the labels aesthetic in the early days before migrating into TV and moving image design. Other labels to receive the Swifty touch have been ‘Source360’, B&W Music, Quango, Clear, Rice, Right Tempo, Clean up and ‘Island Records’.

Website

This talk will take place at Stroud Valleys Artspace: 4 John Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2HA. Please see their website for directions etc.

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Clare Skeats is a London-based print designer, specialising in book design and art direction. She creates covers, whole books and series designs - either independently or collaboratively with and illustrator of photographer.

After graduating in 1997 from Bath College with a first class honours degree in Graphic Design, specialising in illustration, Clare Skeats undertook a work placement at Penguin Books, after which she was offered a job there as a cover designer. In 2002 Clare left Penguin to join Random House as a senior cover designer, working on various non-fiction and literary fiction titles. In 2004 Clare then left Random House to become the in-house graphic designer for the fashion designer Margaret Howell, a position she undertook while setting up as a freelance designer. In 2006, Clare began to work solely as a freelance designer, focusing mainly on books and has worked for clients including The National Maritime Museum, Magnum Photos, the BFI and a number of national and international book publishers. Clare lives and works in London.

Website

This talk will take place at Stroud Valleys Artspace: 4 John Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2HA. Please see their website for directions etc.

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David Pearson is a London-based designer working in all areas of print, specifically in book design and branding. Despite only having graduated in 2002, David Pearson is one of the UK’s top book designers, and has won a D&AD Yellow Pencil for his work for Penguin. Last year he set up his own studio, David Pearson Design.

Website

This talk will take place at Stroud Valleys Artspace: 4 John Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2HA. Please see their website for directions etc.

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