Creating a type foundry/type studio obviously puts a lot of emphasis on the “business of design” for you. I’m seeing a lot of creatives starting to build their brand through application studios, web stores, and other various online entities. Are you guys to striking a balance between the “business” of design while staying fully creative?

Absolutely not.

HypeForType has never been about ‘business’ it’s purely about my obsessive passion for design and typography. Whether it goes well or it doesn’t my main emphasis is on helping designers to evolve. At the end of the day that’s what we all strive for, the ability, persistence, and shear dedication to get to the next level. HFT is here to give designers the opportunity to work with typography and discover it’s incredibly important standing within design.

What was it about type that hooked you and you knew it was something you wanted to be involved in? Besides HFT fonts, got any other fonts that you absolutely love?

That’s a good question. I think it came by chance through my career. My first ever ‘design’ based role was when I was studying and also working at a newspaper setting adverts out. All of these adverts were type based, so after a while you started to notice peoples lack of passion for this job which in a sense was no suprise as creatively it didn’t offer the most rewarding output. However I think if you line up a piece of work with standard text, and a piece of work with the same typography that has been treated, kerned, placed and cared for you can see a massive difference. This detail separates good typography from bad.

In terms of a favourite font, that’s a tough one but I think Neo Deco, that Alex Trochut produced for the foundry has been pretty ground breaking.

Last question. What is your favorite application (mobile, or computer based) that you absolutely NEED to survive in the type game?

Freehand. I will never stop using it, it’s a beautiful program.

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Alex Haigh AKA Thinkdust AKA Hype For Type as interviewed by Jason Schwartz from Bright Bright Great.

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My name is Alex Haigh, I’m a freelance designer from Nottingham, running a company called Thinkdust.

Hey Alex.
I’ve been following you for a long time and your work as Thinkdust, long before Hype For Type was in the works. You recently launched Hype For Type as well as just dropped your first set of exclusive fonts. Exclusive Faces 1 already has some super hot fonts from some super hot creatives. How did you manage to collaborate with such a tight crew like Thinkdust, Jon Burgerman, Hello Hikimori, and Alex Trochut?

Who is next? Eyes on anyone, or any foundry in particular?

Initially, I had this idea (for Hype For Type) around a year ago when I wasn’t that impressed by what the market was actually offering in terms of typography. You tend to find as you observe the design scene over the years some of the larger foundry’s become quite diluted. Products that are not developed 100% and are often technically flawed tend to be on offer, this not only means designers get a rubbish product, but they are also browsing a catalogue with few and far between fully developed professional typefaces.

Who’s next? That’s a secret, but keep your eyes peeled because it will only get better from here.

I really can’t wait to see where you are taking this project. It excites me because I think font is still widely misunderstood. People realize that there are great fonts out there, but don’t know where to get them, or don’t know where to get started with purchasing fonts.

Besides type, what else are you guys hyped for? A laundry list is OK.

Well personally I am a type and design obsessive, apart from that I enjoy the old cold beer, laughs with friends, films, music and all your other general stuff!

I too obsess about design quite frequently. I understand where you are coming from. I’m always looking for new inspiration even when I am not sitting at my computer designing. I’m also finding great new ways to connect with creatives (that inspire me) from all over the world using Twitter, Facebook, and cool design sites like Behance.net. Who do you follow on Twitter? Also, why you follow them.

Top 5 people on twitter, tricky one. I would have to say I enjoy everyone’s posts, and with the foundry and the studio finding the time to actually read every single twitter followers posts becomes quite impossible.

Yeah, we kind of do the same thing over here. We run a Bright Bright Great Twitter, and each of us all have our own pages, so when you add up all the tweets, it get’s a little crazy. I do find it really helpful as a designer to embrace social media to connect with new friends, as well as awesome designers all over world. That’s actually how this interview happened. It all started as a Hype For Type game of Hangman on Twitter!

What’s the feeling like in the studio? Can we see a few pics of the HFT space? How many people, who’s around during the workday?

I’ve attached a photo for you.

Sam takes care of the business side of things, and my eyes are always on the visual side as ever. The overall concept of HFT is to offer affordable top quality fonts for designers and creatives looking to explore with typography, and I think the star of the show will always be our unique idea of the exclusive volumes, it’s only just begun so keep your eyes peeled.

Wow. Nice digs. Is that your Bentley?

- – -
End Part 1. To be continued.

Jason Schwartz is the Art Director at Bright Bright Great, a design company in Chicago, IL.

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From wireframes to websites.
No power… no problem.

This morning I got a call from Dawn that the power was off at the studio, but I knew that when you gotta get rolling and DELIVER, power or no power… you gotta see it through.

The Camp Firebelly crew spent the day at Radio Arte designing, vinyling, and overall styling and profiling.

I got the sitemap from the web team this AM and I knew it was time to get some personality around those wireframes. With the recap presentation at 5pm, my team worked and sweated the afternoon away creating a website on 4 different computers. One member on header, one on body content, one on a right column, and one texturizing! It was intense.

At 5pm we were ready to go and show our first design concept.
I am so proud. I cannot wait to see the finalized site. Go Keith!

View all the days photos here.

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Day 2 with Camp Firebelly

I had the amazing opportunity to help out with Camp Firebelly 2009 today. The campers arrived yesterday and got their “design brief.” Today we had some awesome presentations, broke up into groups and got grindin’.

I am working with the Website team of 4 campers and Keith the Firebelly coder. I guess my experience of “design a website a day” pays off when you are under pressure. First Layer Tennis, now this.

We sorted through the client’s existing website, made some chicken scratch notes and developed a much more streamlined “new V2 site.” Don’t wanna say web 2.0, cause that is played out… more like Version 2.0.

More tomorrow.

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On Friday 4/24 Jason Schwartz competed against Ana Benaroya in a fierce Layer Tennis match. You can view the entire match, plus player bios here, but I am attaching some Volleys for your viewing pleasure. Volleys 1,3,5,7,9 were Ana’s, Volleys 2,4,6,8,10 were mine!

Thank you to Coudal Partners, it was fun!

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More details on Friday’s match.
I will be Tweeting as well as probably opening a Skype chatroom as we rock from Chicago, so stay tuned. #jaycrimes

Coudal Partners Presents: Layer Tennis
Date: 4/24 Jason Schwartz Vs. Ana Benaroya
Time: 11a-3p Central

www.layertennis.com

Stats:
Jason Schwartz
Chicago, IL
www.brightbrightgreat.com
www.butterflavoreddesign.com
Twitter: JayCrimes

Ana Benaroya
New Jersey
www.anabenaroya.com
Twitter: ABenaroya

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For all of y’all who don’t know, Layer Tennis is to a designer, what Jeopardy is to a smart person. I guess you can be smart and compete in Layer Tennis, but mostly it’s about awesome design.

Anyways, on 4/24 I will be competing in a Quarterfinal Qualifier Layer Tennis Match against a yet to be named opponent from 11am to 3pm Central time (I think.)

I plan to be Twittering (@jaycrimes) as well as Flickring (www.flickr.com/photos/jasons). Add me on Twitter now and be part of the fun. If you are a friend of Bright Bright Great, or me I will need your support in the Layer Tennis Crowd. Please post comments.

Yes, this is just a “qualifying match” but if I can take home the Layer Tennis gold, expect to see more of me throughout the season.

Just a start… a sweet beautiful colorful designy start.

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With the straight up commotion and online “buzz” this rebrand has garnered, I can’t believe it wasn’t done by Wolff Olins.

From the START I bet my buds over at Heroes Vs Villains that the Tropicana rebrand wasn’t going to last very long. It was almost as bad as the Sierra Mist redesign, but on a widely accepted product. Pepsico wanted clean and fresh, but htey ended up with something that was confusing to the color blind, and generic.

Here’s the commotion I’ve been hearing:
- Rebrand is generic
- Packaging is hard to differentiate between products
- Logo is too “2.0″
- Packaging doesn’t match the corporate style
- Packaging is boring

Almost every design blog on the net has discussed this packaging in the last month and yesterday the NY Times posted a story that Tropicana was going to move back to a slightly updated version of the old packaging (AND THE OLD LOGO, which is HUGE.)

I understand the whole “let’s make our product new again,” but the direction was just a bit off. I would love to see the design comps from the entire process to see how they got from A to B.

Maybe they will launch a viral campaign A LA The Pepsi Manifesto from last month.
Just wait for the Tropicana rebrand… rebrand.

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Developed and uploaded. Ready to drop!
It’s official, Download Now. (As always, link only available for 2 weeks.)

Like Bright Bright Great’s sweet FREE stuff? Check out our other downloads (IE iPhone Wallpaper, iPod Touch Wallpaper, & Desktop Wallpaper) on the Downloads page.

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Super duper big props to longtime Bright Bright Great collaborator Art Director Boronas for his inclusion on Ads Of The World today for his Red Spot Pizza campaign.

“I’m not sure about Mexico, but the last time a pizza man entered through a bedroom window in Chi-town he got shot up!” -Jason

It’s very hot, very technotronic, and very Boronas and Rik.
We are currently jealous of the fun they are having in Mexico.

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