Bringing Up Typographers

To new parents, expecting parents, or future parents: If your house is full of products that utilize elegant design (not necessarily expensive products), you might have a chance at raising a future designer. At least, that's a take-away from today's NY Times Publics profile of type designers, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones. Apparently, while growing up in Manhattan and Brooklyn, having British food products with Gill Sans font lettering sparked their interest in design. Gothamist has been interested in Hoefler & Frere-Jones ever since the story about the Frere-Jones-designed Gotham typeface. One telling sign if you have a burgeoning type fiend comes from Hoefler: "'Tobias and I were probably the only two people under 14 who subscribed to U&lc,'...referring to a magazine, Upper & Lower Case, published by the International Typeface Corporation." To help aid in the producing the next generation of designers, you can buy British products in NYC at Myers of Keswick in Greenwich Village. Gothamist also thinks we'd buy our babies some Bauhaus building blocks. And Daddy Types is always on the lookout for design-conscious products for baby.

Hoefler & Frere-Jone's official website, where you can buy various fonts. And much to our delight, Frere-Jones visited one of our Happy Hours.