We are very happy to announce that Jonathan will again be speaking at Typo Berlin. This year the theme of the conference is passion. The conference takes place between 20-22 May at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (The House of World Cultures) next to the Federal Chancellor’s Office, Berlin. More information can be found on the Typo Berlin website.

Earlier this year Barnbrook designed some banners and a tapestry for the Hills Café/Space, in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. We thought that this was an opportune moment to showcase the identity we created for the cafe back in 2008.

The identity comprises of a logo created from a customised version of our typeface, Priori Sans, and a series of circular patterns which can be found on banners and advertising.

We also came across this lovely photo of our work on a light-box wall on flickr which beautifully shows our designs.

Below you can see the large ‘tapestry’ that we created, which is displayed within the cafe.

You can find more information on Hills Café/Space on the Roppongi Hills website, also designed by us.

Jonathan will be giving a talk for the acclaimed Long Lunch on Monday 1st March 2010. Tickets cost Tickets £8 or £6 if you are a student; more details can be found on the Long Lunch website.

You’re bored of looking at the Pitchfork polls, you’ve been though Drowned in Sound, now it’s the one you’ve been waiting for. Hurrah! It’s the Barnbrook team’s top albums of 2009.

We’ve agonised over it for hours and we’re still not quite sure it’s right, but still, here goes…
In Alphabetical order by surname:

Abbott:
1. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Boxcutter – Arecibo Message
4. The XX – The XX
5. Fever Ray – Fever Ray
6. Ben Frost – By The Throat
7. Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM
8. Martyn – Great Lengths
9. Harmonic 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence
10. Broken Note – Terminal Static

Barnbrook:
1. John Foxx – The Quiet Man
2. Rhythm & Sound – The Versions
3. Neu! – Neu!
4. Samuel Beckett – Krapps Last Tape (Audiobook)
5. TheThe – Infected
6. Crystal Castles – Thrash/Thrash/Thrash
7. The XX – The XX
8. La Monte Young Marian Zazeela, The Theatre of Eternal Music – Dream House 78′ 17″
9. Zbigniew Preisner – La Double Vie De Veronique (Soundtrack of film directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski)
10. A Clockwork Orange: Wendy Carlos Complete Original Score

Streat:
1. Micachu – Jewelry
2. The XX – The XX
3. Alela Diane – To Be Still
4. King Midas Sound – Waiting For You
5. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
6. Hyperdub 5 : 5
7. Girls – Album
8. Ben Frost – By The Throat
9. St. Vincent – Actor
10. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

In conjunction with Emigre, VirusFonts are proud to announce the launch of a brand new typeface, Priori Acute. Part of the Priori family — which includes Priori Sans and Priori Serif — Priori Acute shares the same common core character as the aforementioned duo, but with radically different styling.

In 2009 our experiments into three-dimensional letter form design led us to the behemoth Hopeless Diamond, now in 2010 the addition of another unfathomable dimension twists the Priori skeleton into the highly unusual display face, Priori Acute.

Drawing heavily on the visual contradictions in the work of the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, Priori Acute is a playful exhibit of incongruous perspectives and twisting shapes that fold into themselves tricking the eye to shift the plane. At first glance and at small sizes the effect is subtle and the original letter forms themselves remain intact, retaining the history of British early 20th century typography, which was an inspiration for the original Priori family. But when blown up, the individual Priori Acute characters become beautifully animated and work well in selective situations such as initial caps, short headlines or logo design. Priori Acute is available to buy through Emigre.

First up is Sarcastic, found in Tony and Guy’s magazine Essensuals. It looks rather nice don’t you think?

Then we have a couple of Mason found in very different places. The first was found on Tim Burton’s book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy; the second on the amusingly named Oktoberfest beer (brewed in California).

Another old favourite, Exocet finds it’s way on to a Tattoo book and – in a quite different use – some rather nice looking herbal teas.

Finally, we have an elegantly designed sign for the San Francisco American Conservatory Theater’s War Music. Splendid!

Thank you very much to Izzy Way, Jesse Lee Stout and Amelia Nardinelli for sending those in. If you want have any uses of VirusFonts you have seen please email then to us at blog@barnbrook.net.

As we begin 2010 Barnbrook would like to announce a radically updated barnbrook.net. The new site gives a summary of some of our recent work and best projects, rather than the entire archive. But don’t fret, if you are a student you can find all the old student resources on the archived site (just head for the about section).

For those of you not on the VirusFonts mailing list, here is the new years card we sent out just before Christmas. It features a quote from the Dalai Lama, set festively in Hopeless Diamond.

Mr Barnbrook is quite well known in Korea, as a graphic designer of course but mainly for the exhibition he had in Seoul where he was one of the few foreign visual artists/designers to tackle the issue of North Korea. So its good to see the opposite happening with Korean artists exhibiting here and taking on issues that affect UK citizens. One of the themes of Supervisions is surveillance and this is expressed in many forms in the work.

The show is on at the Korean Cultural Centre in London, it’s a relatively new place I think many Londoners don’t know about. The gallery (and other branches around the world) is government funded and promotes Korean culture.

Despite the government backing and the rather pedestrian looking web site, the curating is no way safe. It’s run by young staff that have a quick turnover of lively exhibitions which are both radical and accessible. A visit is thoroughly recommended. Designers will find some very interesting conceptual design works. Its on until 6th February more info is available here.

Mason is one of the studio’s most well known (and most used) typefaces and it is always interesting to see it abroad. Quite often it seems to be used by restaurants, and here is another example seen in the Malá Strana district of Praha (Prague), Czech Republic.

We are always interested to see how other designers are using our typefaces so if you have any examples, you can email them to us at blog@barnbrook.net