TYPO Talks » Blog Archiv » Five Questions to … John Hudson

Five Questions to … John Hudson

John Hudson is a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design, he teaches on both undergraduate and post-graduate courses at Staffordshire and Worcester University. He holds an MA with distinction in Sustainable Graphic Communication and is currently working towards a research PhD that looks at ways to embed responsibility within design curriculum. John’s varied background includes running his own artisan bakery, old house restoration and IT consultant. He has spent the last ten years working and studying as a UK based graphic designer and lecturer.

1. Which work are you particularly proud of? Which work best represents your style or approach?

I’m currently very excited about a project called »Responsible Designer«. It’s an App that graphic design students can use to help them consider a more responsible approach to design. It’s a useful resource, with reading lists, inspiration and helpful links.

2. What inspires you?

There are lots of great projects out there at the moment, working on lots of different platforms. I saw Jessica Hische speak at Offset this year and she was fantastic, as effervescent as her work! There are some superb social projects such as foodforgood.me which is developed & run by students working hard to highlight the issues of food waste.

3. The theme of this year’s TYPO Berlin is »Sustain«. Sustainability seems to have evolved into a »buzzword« in the last couple of years, with which agencies and companies aim to fulfill a desire for stability and values. Can you name a project in which this ambition has led to concrete, exemplary design solutions?

I think last years D&AD annual was a good example of how taking a more responsible approach to decision making doesn’t mean compromised design. The annual ticked all the sustainable production boxes but still looks and feels great.

D&AD Annual 2011 designed by Pentagram’s Harry Pearce

D&AD Annual 2011 designed by Pentagram’s Harry Pearce

D&AD Annual 2011 designed by Pentagram’s Harry Pearce

4. TYPO Berlin 2012: What are you especially looking forward to?

To see what innovative projects designers are working on, stuff that can really make a difference and inspire students to consider new approaches. And of course Berlin’s outstanding jazz clubs!

John Hudson

Type Designer & Co-founder of Tiro Typeworks Ltd. (Gabriola BC)

John Hudson designs typefaces and makes fonts. As co-founder of Tiro Typeworks Ltd., a digital foundry specialising in custom font solutions for multilingual publishing and computing, he has been responsible for or has collaborated on type designs for Arabic, Bengali, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Ethiopic, Greek, Gurmukhi, Hebrew, Latin, Odia, Sinhala, Telugu, Thai, and other scripts. Tiro's clients include software companies such as Adobe and Microsoft, and scholarly publishers such as Brill and Harvard University Press, and the STIpub consortium of scientific publishers.

Speaker page

5. Required reading/watching: What are currently your favorite interesting/beautiful publications, books, movies and/or links?

A standout book for me recently was Gary Shteyngart’s »Super Sad True Love Story«, a fantastic, hyper real, satirical look at the future and how technology will shape it. On the film front »Shame« was beautiful & sad in equal measure, while »We Need to Talk About Kevin« was visually stunning. I’m mad about bikes and a friend recently put me onto a wonderful project called »slowcoast«, it’s a guy cycling around the British Isles having conversations with artists and craftspeople with really diverse skills, including a screen printer, weaver and letterpress printer. There’s a lovely book and a series of ‘soundslides’ on the website accompanying the project.