Going out to bars and cafés is Bob’s ritual, and this social interest plays a part in his design work. He talks about why he became a graphic designer. The most important lesson he learned is not to take design too seriously, there are many different ways to approach it. His work is changing a lot over the years, but in general he likes different layers, stories within stories. Bob talks about his former The Hague studio NLXL and his life after closing it down, making drawings with his son and father,and his job at Lava in Amsterdam. What are the differences between NLXL and Lava, The Hague and Amsterdam? He reflects on his avid collecting, his design heroes and the start of his career at Dumbar studios. Recorded at Underware, The Hague.

Note: Bob van Dijk left Lava and runs his own studio again since December 2009.

Personal website

Bob van Dijk AGI bio

Lava

Professor David Crow is Head of the Art and Design faculty at the Manchester University. He discusses his motivation for his move from design to teaching, and his eventual move into being an academic manager. He reveals his experiences as a teacher and the importance of encouraging cross-disciplinary education. Crow talks about his initial interest in typography, his later work with semiotics and theory and the specifics of Manchester and British graphic design. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

David Crow MMU

Left to Right book

Visible Signs book

Sven Ehmann is editor at Die Gestalten publishers in Berlin. He talks about his working process and how he juggles multiple projects. He moves on to discussing the origins of the book Dataflow at Die Gestalten and talks about the field of design publishing and his personal motivations in making books. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

Die Gestalten

Etc publications

Barbara Hahn and Christine Zimmermann are Von B und C, a design studio in Bern, Switzerland. They start by explaining how they got interested in infographics, visualising data as their graduation project, and how they work together (of coarse their collaboration can be best viewed in their self-designed ‘collaboration visualisation’). Analysis and visualisation is a much more complicated and time consuming process than design. They don’t have a preference for either, form and content go hand in hand. Next Von B und C reflect on the role of women, the ideal typeface in infographic design and their Leadership Alphabet. What kind of information do they like to work with most, what is their dream project and what are their information design heroes. What’s next? Have they cheated to improve visualisation? We end with their personal escapades. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

Von B und C

Leadership Alphabet

Otto Neurath

Jacques Bertin

Jeroen Breen, Rob Stolte and Maarten Dullemeijer are Autobahn, design collective from Utrecht, The Netherlands. They first describe the special project they did for their presentation at 33pt in Dortmund, they tell us how they met and how they got interested in typography. They elaborate on their typographic experiments, and how they collaborate. Do they have specialities? Heroes? We finally hear about their big dream. Recorded at the 33pt conference in Dortmund.

Autobahn

Rob Meek talks about the roots of Fontstruct with his MeekFM typographic synthesizer. He speaks about the genesis of Fontstruct and his thoughts on the success of the platform. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

Fontstruct

Meek FM

Typographic synthesizer instruction video

Martin Majoor discusses the new typeface for the Dutch government (Rijksoverheid Serif and Sans). His differing roles as a book designer and as a type designer. He reflects on the lack of female type designers and in graphic design in general. He speaks about how he names his typefaces as well as his current projects. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

Martin Majoor Fontshop

Martin Majoor Wikipedia

Typotheque article

Martin Majoor discusses his first type and lettering books given to him by his grandfather and his first typeface. He recounts his art school days in Arnhem and his current teaching practice and teaching philosophies. He speaks in regards to the influence of history on his work, the difference between working with text typefaces and display typefaces and his hate for Helvetica. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

Martin Majoor

Martin Majoor type design philosophy

I hate Helvetica article

Type designer Jos Buivenga talks about how he got started in type design, his habits and balancing his time for type design with his art direction work. Buivenga shares his thoughts and ideas on selling fonts online, his type design heroes and discusses his type design philosophy and working process. Recorded at the 33pt conference 2009 in Dortmund.

Jos Buivenga

Jos Buivenga blog

Jos Buivenga at Myfonts

Icelandic designer/illustrator Siggi Eggertsson speaks about getting started as a designer and his first job for an art community in his hometown. Reflecting on illustration versus graphic design, he discusses the idea of categories in a professional field. He talks about the influence that moving around to many different cities has had on his work and life. Lastly he talks about his approach to type design in his work as well as his interest in pop stars and idols. Recorded at 33pt conference 2009, Dortmund.

Siggi Eggertsson

Siggi’s blog

33pt bio