TYPO 2018: Q&A with Jürgen Siebert

Taking over the blissful riverside setting of the German capital’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt between 17 and 19 May, design conference TYPO Berlin brings together some of the most brilliant minds from worlds of graphics and type design. This year, the Monotype-conceived event turns its scrupulous gaze on the theme of ‘Trigger’, so expect three days of insightful talks, fiery discussions and collaborative workshops from more than 60 speakers across five stages.

Some speakers on the TYPO Berlin line-up explore concepts of triggering through work with distinctly political (and in some cases, potentially inflammatory) content.

– Art director and designer Jon Key creates work that swirls around heritage and identity. He co-founded platform Artists Against Police Violence and collective Codify Art, which showcases the work of people of colour, as well as being integral to black, queer culture publication The Tenth Magazine and queer filmmakers project SlayTV.com.

– Rita Braz is the mastermind behind Q Revolt, a photography project documenting women who love women.

– You might have seen Timothy Goodman’s Kissing Trumps on the streets of New York – the designer sent lookalikes of the ‘stable genius’ to snog in public – a protest against the president’s misogyny and homophobia.

But not everyone has taken a political perspective on the theme; other speakers have more sedate – but equally intriguing – stories to tell…

– As part of her #TinkerFriday project, Dina Amin picks a random product every week, disassembles it and makes adorable stop-motion stories with the parts.

– Artist and type-lover Hansje Van Halem creates intricate typographic experiments (often with robots) that research the tension between a systematic approach, legibility and irregularity.

– Also using complex digital processes to inform design work, Stuart Radford of London’s Superunion worked with artist Tobias Gremmler to use the movement of composer Simon Rattle to develop campaign imagery for the London Symphony Orchestra using motion-tracking software and a full-body sensor suit.

In anticipation of these, and the other 54 speakers taking part in the three-day inspiration fest, we caught up with Monotype marketing director and TYPO founder Jürgen Siebert to find out more about the history of the event and the thinking behind this year’s theme…

What was the German design landscape like in 1996 and why did it feel like a good time to launch TYPO?

At that time the German graphic design was strongly influenced by a few key figures: Olaf Leu, Kurt Weidemann, Norbert Küppers, Willy Fleckhaus, Otl Aicher and Günter Gerhard Lange. These people worked with small teams – in fact, there were only advertising agencies which also did graphic design, rather than the large design studios you’d see in New York, London or the Netherlands.

Erik Spiekermann, who experienced a different approach at Wolff Olins in London, founded the first graphic design company with 50+ people, MetaDesign. He turned the old German way of design thinking upside down: don’t confuse your client with academic subtleties, position yourself as a service provider and start with simple questions. He saw design as a strategic asset.

This way of thinking has influenced a new generation of creative people who were able to set up offices without great difficulty following the desktop publishing revolution. I can’t imagine a better environment to start a conference.

How has TYPO Berlin evolved since its inception?

Many of our early visitors are on the TYPO stage today. If you look at top German design agencies such as Strichpunkt, Fuenfwerken, KMS Team, Mutabor, Martin et Karczinski and wirDesign, their founders are the children of the 1990s revolution. Our TYPO conference was always right in the middle of it, for the last 20 years. We have brought international icons to Germany – Neville Brody, David Carson, Stefan Sagmeister, Kate Moross, Ken Garland, Paula Scher, Richard Saul Wurman, Gemma O’Brien – to accelerate the transfer of knowledge.

The theme of this year is ‘Trigger’ – why did that seem like a fitting choice for 2018?

We’re using this word in its technical sense, as a procedural code that is automatically executed in response to certain events. ‘To trigger’ describes the activation of a process by a pulse or a pulse sequence. Actually, design is nothing else. In the analogue and slow times, we just didn’t realise that. Today, in the course of digital transformation, a designer’s work is never finished, because the digital world allows and demands continuous adaption.

What’s the most genuinely disruptive design project you’ve come across recently?

I believe that the variable font standard (OpenType v. 1.8) is the most powerful design specification I’ve ever seen during my professional career. This standard is defined in such a multidimensional and flexible way that it will accompany us for a long time. There are no products yet. It’s only in our imagination. But you can think of anything, and the fonts will follow. For example, a display in the windscreen of your car with text thats adapts itself automatically to speed, weather or brightness.

Which of TYPO Berlin 2018’s speakers are you most looking forward to and why?

I don’t want to commit to a specific speaker, but I’m excited about two programme tracks: the highly professional Brand Talks, where top agencies and their brands talk on stage together, and our Talent Talks, curated and moderated by Kali Nikitas from the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Talent Talks gathers eight young designers from Europe and the US, giving them the audience and stage they deserve.

What are the latest issues/projects in type design that we should really have on our radar?

This question is not easy to answer because the type world is more diverse than ever before, but three areas are particularly interesting: the land of free fonts; the endless breadth of daily new releases; and the depth of the archives, with the great classics that are still being maintained. Not to forget exclusive type design production. Also how the fonts come to our desks: via download, stream, subscription, memberships, servers… Sometimes we trigger it; sometimes it comes over us. Finally the new format: Variable Fonts. All this is on the radar, but who can guide us through this jungle?