Barnbrook Bible - Hardcover

Jonathan Barnbrook founded his own design studio, Virus, in London in 1990 and quickly revolutionized the world of typography. His work has been exhibited at The Gagosian Gallery (NY), Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), White Cube (London) and Saatchi Galleries (London). He has won two D&AD Awards, the Epica Grand Prix, The Tokyo Type Director’s Club Gold Prize, and the Art Director’s Club of New York Best of Show Award.

Except among connoisseurs and geeks, typefaces have been seen but rarely talked about by the public at large. Admittedly, this is a pretty arcane subject, and the term "crystal goblet," coined by the type expert Beatrice Ward in 1932, perfectly describes the desired transparency of typefaces as vessels of words and ideas, not eye-stoppers that draw attention to themselves. But with the computer, "font" has entered the vernacular, and almost every keyboard jockey has become an aficionado. In this new context, typography has taken center stage, increasingly more art than craft, and many artful (and artless) typographical compositions are filling galleries and museums. These days, type has become something, shall we say, of an experience.

Few type designers working today are more ostentatious, or have created more of these experiences, than 41-year-old Jonathan Barnbrook, a British graphic designer who practices what could be called agit-type. Many of his compositions, collected in his first monograph, BARNBROOK BIBLE: The Graphic Design of Jonathan Barnbrook (Rizzoli, $75), are designed to challenge, if not agitate, the reader. They are so deliberately kinetic and chaotic that they require time and effort to fully decipher. Few of his compositions satisfy Ward's demand for the crystal-clear -- not even the cover, the title pages or the essay layouts that constitute a large part of this book. So they ask for an investment on the part of the reader but are ultimately always decipherable, even readable, particularly in good light. In fact, once they have been decoded, Barnbrook's distinctive style can be appreciated as a personal expression in the service of mass communication, usually containing a social or political agenda. -- The neew York Times Sept. 9, 2007