The Typographer

On Friday, I visited Melbourne typographer Stephen Banham. Stephen became of interest to me when I agreed last week to research and write an article about signs and "signage" for Design Quarterly, a regular client of mine. His studio, Letterbox, is conveniently close, just a few blocks east of me on Sydney Road, on the first floor of the Hardwick Building, and gave me the chance for a face-to-face interview without having to spend an hour on the tram.

Banham's new book.

Stephen has written several books about typography and, having grown up here, possesses deep institutional knowledge of the signs of Melbourne. A few days earlier, I'd requested a review copy of his new book, Characters: Cultural Stories Revealed Through Typography, and I managed to thumb through just a few pages of it prior to our meeting. It reveals some of the hidden narrative facets of the signs-- the most public medium for typography-- found throughout Melbourne. It's a neat premise, and one that I suspect will keep me from passing this book on to someone else, as I've done with so many other review copies.
For my article, I wanted to get Stephen's take on some of the trends in sign design-- the transition from static to interactive electronic signage, for example, and what's driving it. I had already spoken a couple of days earlier with a representative of Diadem, a large "brand delivery" company that designs and produces signs of various types for some big clients like BMW, ANZ and Tullamarine Airport. My goal with Stephen was to get a more detached perspective, and perhaps some better-informed and less self-conscious quotations.

The Chinese take-away building on Victoria Street.

I suppose I got all of that-- I haven't listened to the recording I made of our conversation. But I was a little distracted by the fact that Stephen and I both live in Brunswick, a neighbourhood rife with typography and signs of all kinds, much of which is left over from the 60s and 70s, and many examples of which I've grown fond of. Here, at last, was an opportunity for me to exchange some favourites with someone who could appreciate what I was talking about.
Immediately, though, I felt like I'd become the character Chris Farley played on Saturday Night Live's recurring sketch "The Chris Farley Show" during which, in his struggle to come up with an insightful question for actor Jeff Daniels, for example, he recalled a moment in one of Daniels' movies and asked, "Do you remember that?" Daniels smiled politely and answered, "Yes." With nowhere to go, Farley's reply was merely, "Um, that was awesome." There was nothing in the way of typography I could help Stephen discover about Brunswick-- not even the Chinese take-away building on Victoria Street...two blocks from his studio. He knew it all, and smiled politely.