Jonathan Barnbrook
Designing Bowie
In Bowie’s adopted town of New York, Jonathan Barnbrook, will for the first time be talking about his long-term collaborations with David Bowie that explore the intersection of music, design, and symbolism. Barnbrook will delve into the design of the Bowie albums The Next Day and Heathen, and Blackstar for which he earned a Grammy Award. He will also discuss his role in the exhibition David Bowie Is and focus on the pivotal role that typefaces and typography play in enhancing the experience of music. (He may also do a rather poor impression of David Bowie at some point in the talk too).
About Jonathan Barnbrook
Since graduating in 1990 from Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, Jonathan Barnbrook has developed a multifaceted practice that includes activism, graphic design, typeface design, industrial design and motion graphics. In 1997 he established his own font company VirusFonts. In 2010, his most famous typeface ‘Mason’ released by Emigre in 1992 became one of the first digital type acquisitions of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Collaborations have included Damien Hirst – for whom he designed the ground breaking monograph I want to Spend…, Activism with Adbusters and the Occupy movement – and most notably David Bowie, working on all of his album cover designs from Heathen in 2002, to his final release Blackstar in 2016. In 2007, his contribution to British graphic design was recognised with a major retrospective exhibition at the Design Museum, London and Ginza graphic Gallery, Tokyo entitled Friendly Fire. A monograph of his work Barnbrook Bible was simultaneously published by Booth-Clibborn Editions. He has been nominated twice for a Grammy for his record cover designs, winning one for the David Bowie album Blackstar.
