Doctrine is the new typeface from VirusFonts. It is the first to be released by the foundry in three years and found its debut outing on the new David Bowie album The Next Day.

Doctrine is a sans-serif family which includes an agreeable text face and a more muscular stencil display face. From the obscure starting point of the North Korean national airline livery, Doctrine has grown to encompass a series of more mature typographic influences. By blending elements of twentieth-century neo-grotesque, humanist and geometric styles, Doctrine is at once universal and idiosyncratic. Including a vast array of ligatures and alternate characters in five weights ranging from thin to black, Doctrine is capable of handling a multitude of testing typographical situations.

VirusFonts has long been interested in the link between ideology, language and typography, and it is this concept that inspired the creation of a new typeface. Following an extreme isolationist and authoritarian ideology, North Korea – the world’s last Stalinist state – affords its population little freedom of movement. Considered by many to be a fundamental human right, air travel facilitates freedom of mobility between states. Air Koryo, the state-owned national flag carrier airline of North Korea, therefore appears to be somewhat of an oxymoron.

With an unsurprisingly dubious safety record and dismal reviews, Air Koryo is not held in high regard, yet there is something wonderfully naive about its attempt to look like a serious airline. Central to this venture is its rudimentary aircraft livery and branding – often crude in application and at times, even looking hand-painted. Once taking the form of a functional stencil typeface, the logo has now metamorphosed into a modern sans-serif. This peculiar conceptual mix – part political philosophy, part corporate branding – inspired the development of a contemporary, human interpretation of the neo-grotesque model, that most ideological of typographic forms.

Escaping beyond the conceptual, political and historical starting points, numerous typographic references have informed the framework of Doctrine. Inspired by mid-twentieth-century modernist idealism but guided by post-modern relativism, Doctrine has evolved into a twenty-first century utopian sans-serif. Pursuit of utopian perfection suggests a purity, or purification – an eradication of extraneous detail – yet, in contrast, the ideology of Doctrine is one of inclusion. The inclusive approach allows a curious blend of modernist, geometric and humanist forms to coalesce in contemporary style.

The basic structure of Doctrine was informed by the neo-grotesque model, notably Adrian Frutiger’s masterpiece Univers and Max Miedinger’s ubiquitous Helvetica – the behemoths of mid-twentieth-century modernism. Yet unlike the aforementioned faces, Doctrine is less clinical and more human in appearance. The rounded, lighter weights speak with graceful composure whilst the large x-height, low contrast and squarer, heavier weights give Doctrine an affable charm and a persuasive voice.

A number of characters draw inspiration from Edward Johnston’s influential humanist sans-serif for the London underground, adding a pre-modern benevolence to the primary character set and a quirky geometry to the stylistic alternates. Paul Renner’s experimental drawings for his visionary Futura provided inspiration for the some of the unusual alternates, as well influencing the more conventional geometric forms.

Adding a playful note to headlines, the alternate capitals draw inspiration from a diverse range of sources. The asymmetric A directly references the Air Koryo livery. Informed by the modular widths of geometric typefaces, the E and F are included with reduced widths. Also influenced by geometrics are the primary G and Q, their respective alternates are based on the grotesque model, as are the alternate M and primary K.

In a nod to typographic history, Doctrine includes a multitude of ligatures. Since the 1950s, the move away from moveable type has seen a steady decline in the typesetting of ligatures. Now however, contemporary OpenType technology allows for an almost limitless number of glyphs, meaning ligatures can be revived and reconsidered for the twenty-first century to bring a curious flair to body and headline text setting.

Doctrine includes four figure styles, two proportional (variable width) styles and two tabular (fixed width). The default figure style is proportional lining – full cap height figures that work best with all-caps settings. Oldstyle figures are designed with ascenders and descenders and have proportions compatible with the lowercase characters for minimal disruption when setting body text. For setting numbers in tables, both lining and old style tabular figures are included.

Doctrine and Doctrine Stencil are available in the flexible, cross-platform OpenType format. Use the OpenType panel in your Adobe or Microsoft Office software to access Doctrine’s full range of features including stylistic alternates, tabular lining and old style figures, proportional lining and old style figures, and a series of ligatures.

“He flooded plain everyday reality with extraordinary, unexpected information, processing the details through a buoyant, mobile mind, and made intellectual discovery seem incredibly glamorous. He helped create in my own mind a need to discover ways of making sense of both the universe and the self by seeking out the different, the difficult and the daring.”
– Paul Morley

We have designed of the book to accompany a major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, David Bowie is – the first international retrospective of the extraordinary career of David Bowie. This is the first book to be granted access to Bowie’s personal archive of performance costume, instruments, set designs, photographs, original design artwork and handwritten lyrics.

The concept of the book and exhibition is formed around an extendable title, David Bowie is. Rather than making Bowie an antique in a museum collection, the title places him at this very moment, omnipresent in our cultural environment. The title is informed by Bowie’s cut-and-paste accumulative appropriation, which, in turn, influenced our thinking and methodology. Bowie was able to channel avant-garde ideas into the populist mainstream without compromising their subversive, liberating power and we hope, in some way, to articulate this in print.

For the design, we drew inspiration from the rich visual diversity of Bowie’s career as well as one of the prominent exhibition themes – the psychogeography of London. Bowie lived in London during a period of immense change, from the peak of optimistic modernism in the 1960s to the retro-fascinated, introspective, post-modern dystopia of the 1970s. The design draws influence from this urban energy employing a varied layout style, full-bleed images and bold headlines.

The book showcases a rich variety of visual material from Bowie’s career including costumes, portraits, lyric sheets, drawings, models and other memorabilia. To anchor this material in the expansive singularity of the title, a bright orange accent colour was employed throughout – a colour that reappears throughout Bowie’s aesthetic. The hair of Ziggy Stardust, the Aladdin Sane flash, the covers of Low, Heathen and Scary Monsters, as well as the RCA single labels all feature a shade of orange. The cover image is a twist on what must be one of the most iconic pop culture images, the cover of Aladdin Sane. In this image from Brian Duffy’s photo-shoot, Bowie stares straight ahead, confronting the viewer with with an almost unsettling stare. The image is given a bright orange treatment, distinguishing it from the album cover.

Albertus was chosen as the headline typeface for number of reasons. London plays a pivotal role in the story told by the exhibition and we wanted the book to speak the language of London without resorting to Johnston (as fantastic as it is). Firstly, Albertus is used on the street signs in Lambeth, the borough in which Bowie’s birthplace of Brixton is located. Secondly, Albertus was commissioned by Stanley Morison (creator of the quintessentially British Times New Roman) and designed by Berthold Ludwig Wolpe (German born, British designer), so the Anglo-Germanic history draws a nice parallel to Bowie’s time in Berlin. Priori Serif, drawn by Jonathan Barnbrook and Marcus Leis Allion is used as the body typeface. Priori borrows from the work of notable British typographers Eric Gill and Edward Johnston, and found one of its first outings on the cover of Bowie’s 2002 album Heathen.

Since this will be shortly released to the world we thought we would give you a first look at the CD cover of new David Bowie album The Next Day. We explained the concept for the front cover here. The reaction to it has been phenomenal. Rarely do people talk about the cover design other than ‘its nice’ and we have seen many opinions (both positive and negative) about what people think about it. We are simply very happy that people understand the importance of graphic design, the important role of the album cover and care enough to comment on it. (We do, by the way, still absolutely stand by doing it). We are also really happy that the white square has become a simple meme to symbolise the album.

David Bowie Portrait by Jimmy King

The packaging is an extension of that idea. The back features the reverse of “Heroes” with a simple undesigned track listing. The inside is even more minimal. The concept was to create difference by the absence of graphics and text. Why? In a world were we are assaulted by signs and messages urgently competing for our attention, the only way to be different is to take all that away and have a minimal calm space. In 2013, this is not easy, record companies want logos, shops want product identifiers, publishers want copyright info, but we did it (almost) – no typography except for one black on black copyright notice. The white square repeats, obscuring David Bowie’s face which is balanced by a black on black square opposite. The portrait of Bowie is finally revealed underneath when you get to the CD.

In contrast with the monochrome feeling of the packaging, included is a brightly-coloured almost psychedelic fold-out poster inside. The cover is repeated and the lyrics are treated in a completely mechanical way, with no differentiation between title, verse or even song. Instead they ares are shown as one, plodding, very long list, reflecting the notion that we all endlessly move onto The Next Day, we have no choice, that is what ‘existence’ is.

During January we would normally reveal our top ten albums of the last year. But what with the a certain album release, we have been a little sidetracked. We know you are dying to hear the results of the studio poll, so without further ado, here (in alphabetical order) are our lists:

Abbott
01. Captain Murphy – Duality
02. Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes
03. Andy Stott – Luxury Problems
04. The Gaslamp Killer – Breakthrough
05. Daphni – Jiaolong
06. Mala – Mala in Cuba
07. Actress – R.I.P.
08. Julia Holter – Ekstasis
09. Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe
10. Alt-J – An Awesome Wave

Barnbrook
“As part of the curation panel for the V&A exhibition ‘David Bowie Is’, I have been immersed in biographies and listening non-stop to David Bowie’s older music, so here is my top ten of his previous albums. The Next Day is excluded as I wasn’t listening to it will working on the exhibition.”
01. “Heroes”
02. Low
03. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
04. Hunky Dory
05. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
06. Earthling
07. 1. Outside
08. Lodger
09. Station to Station
10. Heathen

Streat
01. Julia Holter – Ekstasis
02. Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras, The Congos – Icon Give Thank
03. Micachu – Never
04. Holy Other – Held
05. Andy Stott – Luxury Problems
06. Shackleton – Music for the Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EPs
07. The Invisible – Rispah
08. Laurel Halo – Quarantine
09. Raime – Quarter Turns Over A Living Line
10. Bob Dylan – Tempest

Unexpected Pleasures: the art and design of contemporary jewellery closes at the Design Museum this Sunday 3 March, so there is just a few days left to view the exhibition. On Friday, the Design Overtime evening programme of talks and workshops will give visitors the opportunity to meet and interact with contemporary jewellers and jewellery designers. Entry to Design Overtime also includes access to the exhibition and with every ticket sold, the Design Museum will give away a poster. The poster, printed on heavyweight uncoated stock, was designed to publicise the exhibition and features our graphic identity, found also on the Unexpected Pleasures book.

Thanks to the photographer Luke Hayes and the Design Museum for supplying us with the images features in this post.

There has been much discussion surrounding the cover of the new David Bowie album The Next Day so thought I would answer a few questions that people have asked about it.

– Why not a new image for the cover?
We wanted to do something different with it – very difficult in an area where everything has been done before – but we dare to think this is something new. Normally using an image from the past means, ‘recycle’ or ‘greatest hits’ but here we are referring to the title The Next Day. The “Heroes” cover obscured by the white square is about the spirit of great pop or rock music which is ‘of the moment’, forgetting or obliterating the past.

However, we all know that this is never quite the case, no matter how much we try, we cannot break free from the past. When you are creative, it manifests itself in every way – it seeps out in every new mark you make (particularly in the case of an artist like Bowie). It always looms large and people will judge you always in relation to your history, no matter how much you try to escape it. The obscuring of an image from the past is also about the wider human condition; we move on relentlessly in our lives to the next day, leaving the past because we have no choice but to.

– Why “Heroes”?
If you are going to subvert an album by David Bowie there are many to choose from but this is one of his most revered, it had to be an image that would really jar if it were subverted in some way and we thought “Heroes” worked best on all counts. Also the new album is very contemplative and the “Heroes” cover matched this mood. The song Where are we now? is a comparison between Berlin when the wall fell and Berlin today. Most people know of Bowie’s heritage in Berlin and we want people to think about the time when the original album was produced and now.

– Why the white square obscuring the image?
We worked on hundreds of designs using the concept of obscuring this cover but the strongest ones were the simplest – it had to be something that was in direct contrast to the image underneath but that wasn’t too contrived (we know all design is contrived, that is the essence of the word ‘design’). It would have been clearer to many people if we had scribbled all over the cover but that didn’t have the detachment of intent necessary to express the melancholy of the songs on the album. Obscuring Bowie’s image is also reference to his identity, not only in the past when he changed endlessly but that he has been absent from the music scene for the past ten years. Was this an act to hide his identity or that he has simply become more comfortable with it?

– Why is there no colour?
The title of the album The Next Day evokes numerous reference points, notably Macbeth’s speech ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow ’ which deals with the relentless onward push that any unnatural position of power requires. It also has the existential element of Waiting for Godot with waiting for The Next Day – these all seem to question the nature of existence so a monochrome palette seemed most appropriate to this feeling.

– Why didn’t you do a logo, or new design of his name on the cover?
We wanted the cover to be as minimal and undesigned as possible, we felt the most elegant solution was to use the original one from “Heroes” and simply cross out the title of the old album. It has the detachment appropriate for the atmosphere of the new album.

– What is the font you used for the main title?
It is a new font that we are working on called Doctrine – this is the first major use of it. Doctrine will be released in the coming weeks at VirusFonts.

– What is Bowie like to work with?
He is quite a private person, so no need to say too much about him other than that he is a pleasure to work with. Very intelligent, funny, serious when he needs to be and generous in his thoughts and actions.

– Is there anything else you can add?
Yes, having said all this, we know it is only an album cover with a white square on it but often in design it can be a long journey to get at something quite simple which works and that simplicity can work on many levels – often the most simple ideas can be the most radical. We understand that many would have preferred a nice new picture of Bowie but we believed that would be far less interesting and not acknowledge many of the things we have tried to discuss by doing this design. Finally we would like to give David Bowie great credit, he simply did what he always does which is to go with a radical idea and that takes courage and intelligence. That is why we love his music and love working for him.

The proposal by the UK government to introduce a new EBacc qualification in place of GCSEs will mean arts subjects are no longer recognised qualifications. This mindless myopia threatens the very future of the arts and will impact the creative economy in this country. If you feel as outraged as we do then get involved at the Include Design campaign. You can sign an online petition, write to your MP or publicise the campaign through Twitter using the hashtag #includedesign.

The fourth quarter of 2012 was incredibly busy for the studio and we neglected to announce our final intern of the year, Paul Crump. Paul worked on a number of projects, playing a key part in winning a pitch. So thank you Paul – we wish you well in your next adventure.

Happy new year to you readers. As the proverbial hangover dissipates and we look forward to 2013, we are anticipating a big year for the studio. We have been working on a number of exciting projects due to be released this year including: the publicity material and book to accompany the David Bowie is exhibition at the V&A; a number of books for Thames & Hudson (including Taxidermy, due to be launched this spring); the visual identity for Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv; branding for a major art fair; a continued collaboration with John Foxx; a project about Northern Ireland; and finally, a new typeface through VirusFonts – watch this space for further details!

Unexpected Pleasures: the Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery opened on Wednesday night with a private view and we were in attendance to see our exhibition graphics revealed. Curated by guest curator Dr. Susan Cohn, the exhibition features almost two hundred unique pieces of contemporary jewellery — a movement which sits at the intersection between art, design, fashion and craft. The show includes everything from the delicately beautiful to physically imposing, and reveals the depth of thought and creativity in this wonderfully diverse and challenging movement.

The space — beautifully designed by Louise Martin and Ab Rogers of Ab Rogers Design — allows visitors to pass through the exhibition in a non-linear manner, flowing from one cabinet to the next. To provide orientation for visitors we colour coded each section. The colours are found on captions and laser-cut powder-coated hanging signs.

There are no freestanding graphics — everything is attached to a case, a wall, or hung from the ceiling — to provide a clutter free viewing space. The two Linking Links sections, Creative Systems and Social Expressions, feature circular cluster cases which include up to six pieces. Since the cabinets are circular and there is no start or end point to the cluster, it seemed illogical to label the pieces one to six or a to f. Instead we settled upon a series of icons, each clearly distinguishable from the next. It is these icons that flow around the title graphic at the entrance to the exhibition.

The identity, which includes a bespoke headline typeface, vivid colour palate, pattern typeface and icons, was formulated over the course of the last two years whilst working on the book and inaugural show at the NGV, Australia. The book, published by Rizzoli, documents the themes and ideas behind the exhibition as well as providing critical perspectives on the jewellery movement.

In addition to the identity, exhibition graphics and book, we also created the publicity material for the show. Working with the Design Museum corporate style but with the introduction of our exhibition identity, a poster, invite and animated e-footer were created.

The shots in this post are those that were hastily taken at the private view but when the show has been professionally photographed we will showcase more images here.