Jonathon Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones two award winning type designers and type historians, are based in New York. Taking influence from the world around them, typographic history and New York signage in particular. Having recently designed Gotham based on the archaic shop signage of Manhattan; it was given the honour of being the typeface chosen for the foundation stone of the soon to be built Freedom Tower.
Not content with merely designing typefaces, these explorers of type delve deep into research. Extensively trying out combinations of kerning pairs and weights. For example in the typeface retina which was designed for the 5pt small print of the Wall St Journal stock pages, they analysed 129 American and international papers. They kept a binder containing 3800 unique examples of ways in which news agate is used. Not content with this they also tested the typeface on press to make sure their solution, with enlarged counters and 'traps' to collect pooling ink worked perfectly.
It's precisely this attention to detail which has earned them legendary status amongst the graphic and publication community, though they remain hidden preferring to scour through the archives in search of the perfect type for the job.
H & FJ have also designed for They Might be Giants, Barbara Glauber of HeavyMeta design a neighbour commissioned a font for the album "Factory Showroom". This has since been released as 'Giant'. Other clients include Rolling Stone, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times and Esquire.
In 2002 Jonathon Hoefler won the prestigious Prix Charles Peignot awarded by the Associated Typographique Internationale to designers who have made an outstanding contribution to type design.
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