KRIS SOWERSBY

Kris Sowersby founded Klim Type Foundry (Klim) in 2005, based in Te Whanganui-a -Tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Since releasing Feijoa, in 2007, Kris has received numerous awards and accolades for his work. In my first few weeks as a graduate student at Boston University I chose Sowersby's typeface Founders Grotesk for a specimen project, and have been significantly influenced by his work throughout the remainder of my grad tenure.

What are the main ways you consider your audience when designing a retail font?

Fonts have two audiences: designers and readers. We firstly try to appeal to designers by making compelling, weird campaigns and trusting they will get it. We assume intelligence and competence, and don’t use trite marketing. Secondly, we appeal to their working lives and conditions by making fonts that will work in their given contexts. Good craft, basically. And this craft is ultimately exposed to the end audience, which is the reader.

On several occasions you’ve discussed the presence of the designer’s hand, or ‘fist’ in their work. Is the visibility of this character/styling something that should be continually present, or does it require mitigation depending on the project? To what degree can designers harness the visibility of their hand?

It is simply impossible to have no character and styling. Even the most extreme minimalists/modernists have character and style. Every designer, eventually, harnesses their hand in all work they make. It can be a double-edged sword, sometimes designers will end up being known for a specific style in a specific context, and struggle to break out. However, they might be totally happy in that niche!

You’ve mentioned that the process of type design generally reaches an emotional neutral, because projects often span several years. What would an emotional typeface look like? How would designing something like this differ from your usual process?

Maybe a typeface can never look emotional. Emotions can only be experienced by people, I don’t think I believe in anthropomorphic typefaces. Of course, they can make you feel certain things, but those feelings are not fixed across different people, or even the same person. Sometimes ‘Times New Roman’ can make you feel excited, other times it can really get you down.

What role do you believe software plays in digital craft, and to what extent (if at all) is this translated into the audience's reading of the work?

Software is the invisible presence in all our work. We use it to make work, we use it to ingest work. I am not sure, really, what an audience would read it as. Sometimes I get tired of reading digital things on digital devices, but I'm quite attuned to it.

In your Azimuts 43 interview you said that type design has a concrete end when everything is drawn/spaced, kerned, hinted and mastered, and you’ve also mentioned the design process ending in a ‘denouement of exhaustion’. As someone who has trouble knowing when to step away from a project I’m curious: over the years, has your relationship to your finished work changed, and if so, how?

Damn, I said that? Yes, it’s changed quite a lot. I am more patient. Now that I’ve been around the traps a few more times, I know how long a typeface will take. I’ve lost the desperate urge to make a whole bunch, to “git gud,” to “prove myself.” I know that what I initially *want* in a typeface will change as it progresses, and I have to learn to appreciate what I *get*. I stop pushing so hard and let it guide me towards what it wants to be. I have also abandoned typefaces with tens, maybe hundreds of hours in them because I know they just aren’t working.

In past interviews and writing, you’ve discussed how type design can have different accents - how overt or covertly do you believe these accents are communicated by fonts in use?

Some designers have a strong affinity towards local or culturally relevant fonts. As *very* broad examples: Franklin Gothic for Americans, Sabon for Germans, Helvetica for the Swiss, Antique Olive for the French, etc. I think some designers feel these accents and use them very naturally, like communicating in their own verbal language. Of course, it’s not just for this reason, but many other reasons as well.

What is your favorite thing about working in type design?

Autonomy is the main one. It’s wonderful to be at a stage where I’ve built a career and foundry that functions as a good business. Employing people feels great!

Do you have any final thoughts or specific advice for someone interested in establishing a design practice rooted in typographic communication?

It’s going to be a hard path. Not many people care about typography, it’s just something that happens to them, words are words. But that’s OK, there’s an ancient line of typographic practitioners who work the craft, making small steps, contributing to the literary landscape. It’s not flash, it’s not trendy, but it’s a good thing to do.

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