I recently caught up with fellow FFF’er Luke Tonge to find out about Issue 1 of new typography magazine The Recorder which he designed and art-directed this Summer. The mag itself is 120 pages of typographic goodness, with a stunning gold foil masthead that continues onto the back cover, multiple throw-out pages, spot colours and a very pleasing sewn binding. Contained within: Jamie Murphy of The Salvage Press, Design educator Harry Leeson, Illustrator David Doran, Pentagram’s Abbott Miller, The Herb Lubalin Study Center, Design legend Alan Kitching, Ghostsigns expert Sam Roberts, Design writer Angela Riechers, Ingo Italic and Bärbel Bold, Illustrator Neasden Control Centre, New York designer Jessica Svendsen and Type designer Gunnar Vilhjálmsson. Buy it online here, and read on to check out the interview and see how you can get a free copy courtesy of FFF…
AJJ: Tell me a bit about the magazine & how you got involved?
LT: Sure. Basically it’s a new revival of a very old magazine and its an absolute dream project. Type company Monotype first published ‘The Monotype Recorder‘ way back in 1902 and continued to do so sporadically for the next 90 or so years. It has incredible heritage with amongst others the amazing Beatrice Warde a former editor (appointed in 1927) and Eric Gill involved. As Monotype has been enjoying a public renaissance over the past couple of decades and moved into wider areas of type they put out a brief to reinvent the mag for a modern audience – not as a sales tool – but as a celebration of typography. I pitched in spring and over the past few months have been working very closely with Emma Tucker who is The Recorders editor (& unflappable mastermind), to put together the first (re)issue. It’s been quite a year for Monotype, they’ve added both Mark Boulton Design and Erik Spiekermann’s FontShop to their ranks, which cemented in my mind i’d made the right decision as they’re clearly a company as passionate about excellent typography now as in the days of Warde and Gill.
AJJ: You’re no stranger to collaborating over distance, was this the case again with The Recorder as Monotype’s UK base is in London? How did it come together alongside your day-job?
LT: It’s worked really smoothly for a number of reasons (and that isn’t always the case for distance projects as involved as a magazine relaunch) the biggest reason is how Monotype have been as a ‘client’ – they afforded me a huge amount of freedom to shape the magazine visually as I saw fit – and trusted me to find the balance of honouring their past while hopefully bringing the Recorder bang up to date. That ownership extended to spec’ing paper, determining the size and format, print finishing etc. Much credit has to go to Emma, she was a dream partner and we’ve developed a very complementary working relationship. As ever working at distance allows for a back and forth dialogue with big enough gaps to really digest and progress a design and our schedule allowed for that. The second big reason it worked as well as it did was because of the fine folk at LIFE Agency where I spend my days – they know i’m a magaholic AND a huge type nerd – so they understood this was a rare opportunity and a passion project I just couldn’t pass by, so they all generously supported me in going for it.
AJJ: Our paths first met while you were out in Detroit working on that issue of Boat Mag, and I had just finished Issue 1 of Kinfolk, what is it about the magazine community that draws you back to it? Didn’t you fancy a break after Boat Mag?
LT: I’ve always loved magazines and print, so for me they’ve always been the purest of canvas for design work – I love many aspects of digital but when it comes to consuming and owning a collection of stories or articles I just can’t get past the physicality and tactility of ink on paper. There’s so many words that come to mind when I think about printed magazines – craft, pace, artefact, feel, smell, substance, keepsake, etc – and they just don’t when I think about their digital counterparts. Boat was a great season for me and really opened my eyes to the indie magazine community – Jeremy Leslie aka Magculture, Steve at Stack, Dan at Magpile, Matt, Kuchar & Betty at Port, yourself at Kinfolk, Rosa at Cereal, Alec at Intern, Holly & Simon at Eye etc. There’s obviously loads more besides doing great work, but its a really open, unpretentious and enthusiastic microcosm to be a part of. Working in magazines is also a great opportunity to commission talented friends! I’m so stoked that in this relaunch issue we have brilliant illustrations by Neasden Control Centre and David Doran alongside great articles and photography, plus we partnered with Mohawk (shout out to Chris Harold for his help) and the team at Leycol who held our hand through the always nerve-wracking print process!
AJJ: What’s next for The Recorder? Will there be subsequent issues, and if so, will you remain involved?
LT: It seems so…I don’t want to count any chickens before they’re hatched, but I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved with issue 1 with such a tiny team, and I feel like there is SO much more i’d love to explore with and in the magazine. Type is not a subject we’re going to run out of great subject matter about! We’ve already got some stories on the boil and great contributors lined up to be involved, plus some pretty exciting topics we’d like to cover. I think this first relaunch issue is a bit of a test to see if an audience will take the leap and care about what we’ve produced – I obviously really hope they do – and if so i’d love to have another bite at the cherry!
AJJ: With the subject matter did you feel added pressure with your type choices?
LT: I was certainly conscious that its key audience would be people interested in typography! It’s impossible to please everyone of course, but the focus was much more on engaging and demonstrating the passion Monotype has for type than producing something highbrow for the experts and purists. I had a few principles in my head going into this, one was making sure the type never overtook the content but supported it appropriately. Having access to all the gazillion Monotype fonts was both exciting and daunting, so we shortlisted a selection that felt right then re-visited it as fresh content came in. Some people might find The Recorder a bit fontalicious but every bit of type was carefully considered. I wanted to avoid anything too ultra-trendy or self-conscious, stripped back or minimal. The mag is a celebration of type and global type-culture, so the design intentionally reflects that eclectic and rich aesthetic.
AJJ: Who should get hold of this mag? and how?
LT: Good question! It seems to me over the past decade type has really broken out of its nerdy dusty box and is being more widely engaged with and appreciated, so the potential audience is ever growing. And as great as many of our favourite design mags are, there’s very few out there focussing just on type in a very accessible yet intelligent way. I personally see The Recorder sitting somewhere between quality general design publications like Creative Review and (my all-time favourite) Eye, and the specialist high-end hardcore type focussed journals Codex and Baseline (both also brilliant). I think if you are into either end of that scale, or you just want to know a bit more about the role of type in the world, then it’s for you. As to where you can get hold of a copy – initially online through this microsite and it hopefully will start popping up in some quality independent shops too!
Luke has kindly given us a copy hot off the press to give away to a FFF’er – all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is tweet @Formfiftyfive and tell us what magazine you’d like to redesign (current or out of print) and why.
