Something Old, Something New
with
Ben Kiel and
Jesse Ragan
How does one generate ideas for new typeface designs? Ben Kiel and Jesse Ragan will discuss the winding roads to two upcoming releases from their foundry, XYZ Type. One began with Jesse's independent effort to revive a neglected 1967 concept by Rudolph Ruzicka. When a OCD Agency found the typeface's perfect application in Dartmouth College’s identity system, the ongoing project gained new focus and motivation. Another typeface began as Ben's graduate thesis project, a bookish serif face that he'd written off as a learning experience. A proposal for Paypal led him to repurpose its underlying structure for Grep, a sans serif for screen reading. Prolonged dormancy benefitted both of these projects, which gave the designers the chance to critically reflect upon and improve the design of each.
The Herb Lubalin Lectures are recorded and made available here and on Vimeo with the generous support of Hoefler&Co.
About Ben Kiel
Ben Kiel works as a typeface designer and a partner at XYZ Type from a backyard studio shed in St. Louis, Missouri. Running a type foundry brings together Ben’s diverse background in graphic design, coding, letterpress printing, and type history. After studying graphic design and computer science at Washington University in St. Louis, he completed an MA in Typeface Design at the University of Reading in the UK. Ben began his career at House Industries, then ran a solo design practice for several years before co-founding XYZ Type. Ben has taught at MICA, Washington University, and Type@Cooper.
About Jesse Ragan
Jesse Ragan designs a broad range of typefaces for XYZ Type, which he and Ben Kiel launched in 2017. Beyond making fonts from scratch, Jesse also specializes in customizing lettering for logotypes and helping clients understand how letterforms tick. Jesse studied graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design. After interning at Font Bureau, he began his career at Hoefler & Frere-Jones before going out on his own for a decade. He cofounded Type@Cooper, has served on AIGA NY’s board of directors, and has taught at Cooper Union and Pratt Institute.