Barbara Glauber’s Love for Weird Types

Interview by Justin Zhuang 06 . 09 . 15

From discovering type on a Letraset poster to directing typefaces as a graphic designer, Barbara Glauber has had a long and deep love affair with typography. The principal of New York-based Heavy Meta has built up an impressive portfolio of designs defined by an expressive use of typography rooted in the CalArts tradition where she graduated from in 1990. We caught up with the design educator, mom, and also co-founder of celebrity dirt website The Smoking Gun (she designed the original website for her husband Bill Bastone) for a quick interview about her latest projects, type wish list, and her upcoming Typographics talk, “Crashing Vernaculars.”

JZ: You’ve just sent off some books to the printers. Tell us about them.

BG: I’ve just designed a book on the artist El Anatsui, an African artist who uses liquor bottle caps to make these really beautiful screens that drape on walls. For the book, I used exposed binding that shows the stitching on the edge, which is similar to how he links his bottle caps together with wire and shows the element of construction. I also have ASCII elements in the book because he puts his caps together in grid. I thought relating that typographically in the interior would be interesting so I have slashes, dashes and equal signs that make this fields of color that divide the book’s chapters.

Another book I just did was for the Tang Museum at Skidmore College which turns 15 this year. The book is a collection of 50 essays that combines one work from the museum collection with a piece of writing. I built a typographic system into that by using Chester Jenkins’ Galaxie Polaris and Copernicus — sort of the same typeface, but one is serif and another is sans serif — for the writing and for the artwork.

There is a lot less local nowadays, and “local” doesn’t quite mean the same thing anymore. I think everything is appropriated.

JZ: In 1993, you wrote the beautiful visual essay “Drawn to Type” using a variety of typefaces to express and recount your love affair with typography. If you were to add to it today, what would the next chapter tell?

BG: What that expressed was a particular moment when I was in high school, and you had no access to typography. There were no personal computers, and even buying Letrasets was very expensive and a big treat. I used to try drawing letters and the really tricky ones were fun and gave me a greater sense of accomplishment. It’s how I taught myself a little bit about typography. “Drawn to Type” basically compared my high school training, which was none—just me and my Letraset poster in my bedroom—to getting through undergraduate. I learned pretty quickly you did not use Pluto Outline when you went to your Type 1 class. Not that I tried doing that, but there were only very modern, severe type available then—maybe Univers or Bodoni if you wanted a serif. You were supposed to use very crystal goblet-like and plain typefaces.

The next chapter would be about my training in graduate school where I was allowed to expand my choices and think about those modernist constraints that I learned in undergraduate. At CalArts, we questioned those ideals and motives in design, and we sought to do things that were more expressive. It has led to where I am since: I have a lot of Swiss structure in my work, but I do like more elaborate and weird things with very particular associations. Kind of a vernacular, where things are more assertive and operate in a less neutral way.

Dala Prisma loop created by Commercial Type.

JZ: What contemporary typefaces would you use to tell that story?

BG: I definitely have a wish list, things I really, really want to use. Hoefler’s Obsidian is a gorgeous typeface that has an element of light shining on it like an engraved font. I tried to use it on something but it got rejected. I also love Paul Barnes’ Dala Moa and Dala Prisma. Those are really beautiful and I love to find a home for them. I really like Fred Smeijers’ Bery Tuscan and Bery Script too. I like things that sort of suggest a weird structure and it’s really great when I can figure out some system that makes conceptual sense for that kind of form to play a part. I can’t always, but I try [Laughs].

Obsidian, by Andy Clymer, was designed using custom-built shading algorithms. Courtesy of H&Co.
I think of my role sometimes as being a casting director. Sometimes I want the recognizable star in it and sometimes I just want the no-name actor who is just going to perform the role.

JZ: Pairing type to concept seems a big part of your design process…

BG: I would say it is essential to how I do it. Sometimes there is more practical considerations too. I think of my role sometimes as being a casting director. Sometimes I want the recognizable star in it and sometimes I just want the no-name actor who is just going to perform the role because I have costumes and other things to do in that play or film. There are different needs: I need somebody who can talk really fast because I have to get a lot of words in a line [Laughs] or I need it to be bold. There is usually some practical and conceptual considerations in how I put a particular group of typefaces together.

JZ: With the ubiquity of digital media today, how do you think the definition of the “vernacular” has changed?

BG: I never really operated with the kind of older definition of “vernacular” that implied a high and low in culture. I agree with how Ellen Lupton described “vernacular” as just a visual dialect. There is a modernist vernacular, and I don’t think there is necessarily just sign painter vernacular in Guadalupe. It can be applied high, low and anywhere.

There is a lot less local nowadays, and “local” doesn’t quite mean the same thing anymore. I think everything is appropriated. At least for me, I invent my own local by making it particular to a project. My designs look and behave that way because of the circumstances of that particular project.

Molecules That Matter, showcasing a sculptural exhibition of giant molecules.

JZ: What are some issues you hope to hear discussed at Typographics?

BG: I’m really excited because it’s not just hearing from the users of type but the people who make it too. Speakers like Erik van Blokland make these very flexible tools that rethink the way that type sits on a page and allows for different kind of variations, like typefaces with a shadow or one that gets wider and skinnier. I am interested in more malleable type systems and the different ways they can behave and be applied. How is a typeface that can be animated give me something I didn’t use to have when I made something in print? Does that typeface have some kind of strange axis or width variant that I wouldn’t have when it was just a traditional typeface?

JZ: Tell us more about your talk “Crashing Vernaculars.” What can audiences expect?

BG: I’m talking about a range of my projects and comparing them to the way other artists or designers have used some of those similar ideas. In “Lift and Separate: Graphic Design in the ‘Vernacular’” (1993) I looked at how designers borrowed languages and applied them in different ways. For instance to have a watch that looks like an oven dial, was it about elevating the profession of design by saying we aren’t that? “Crashing Vernaculars” is more about how you borrow things and blend them together. You might borrow the oven dial, but you bring in some other reference too. And it’s not just the surface, it’s could be a behavior, a way something functions, or being very expansive and thinking about what you’re borrowing and how it can inform the way you approach something new.

JZ: Has any typography surprised you lately?

BG: Dutch designers Mevis & Van Deursen did a whole identity based on a font they had drawn for the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in the Netherlands. It was such a nice identity because it worked with the way the typeface works.

The type that Paula Scher did for The New School is really nice too. I like that it is sort of flat but implies a kind of dimensionality to it. The sign system appears sort of dimensional sometimes, but sometimes it is very flat. To have all those references within one system is pretty interesting.

This interview has been condensed and edited.