ATG Interviews Jan Middendorp, Author / Publisher, Druk Editions
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Against the Grain Manuscript 8246 ATG Interviews Jan Middendorp, Author / Publisher, Druk Editions Katina Strauch Matthew Ismail Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. ATG Interviews Jan Middendorp Author / Publisher, Druk Editions by Matthew Ismail (Director of Collection Development, Central Michigan University) <[email protected]> and Katina Strauch (Editor, Against the Grain) <[email protected]> Introduction: Jan Mitterdorp’s book JM: Oh, I don’t think I was very aware of Dutch Type (Rotterdam, 2004), an overview the international import of those names. Else- of font design in the Netherlands, has been vier was also the title of a conservative week- out of print for ten years. A very good used ly, Wolters Kluwer was where our school copy is available today on Amazon for $495, dictionaries came from. Brill was special however, suggesting that demand remains to me because they made such exotic books, strong even after a decade! some of which ended up in a remainders book Now, I didn’t know about Jan Midder- store — a national chain — and became really dorp’s work when he recently contacted ATG. cheap. That store, called De Slegte, became my main source of arcane typographic pub- Jan told us that he regained the rights to lications once things got more serious and Dutch Type from the publisher and is starting when I began thinking in the late 1980s of a Kickstarter campaign to republish it. Given typography and type design as a niche where that ATG has connection to both the world of I could be of some use. I had no talent for libraries and to publishers, Jan wondered if type design, in spite of my attempts at lettering we could help him gain an audience for his as a young guy; but I understood letterforms, campaign? and did realize I had a good feeling for page I was immediately interested. Jan is a layout, which allowed me to become a self- distinguished European journalist and critic taught book and magazine designer. of the arts and design and his book clearly ATG: How has your type design-relat- still resonates with those who are passionate I always considered myself a kind of ed work changed since you first became about type design. Since I have also sought to journalist, or reporter. Professionally, I first interested? regain the rights to my work from a publisher, wrote about theatre, dance and experimental JM: I happened to move from Holland to I was also somewhat envious that Jan is able performance. Occasionally music. Later I Ghent in Belgium towards 1990, at a moment to give his work a second chance! moved to design and typography — back to when FontShop Benelux (Belgium/Nether- Rather than just help Jan with his market- my earliest fascinations. See below. lands/Luxemburg) did the same. I first got ing, I was very pleased that he consented to ATG: Where did you work as a journalist? to know them as a customer, then proposed give us an interview. — MI Did you have a favorite assignment? a piece for their little magazine. A few years JM: I wrote for the school newspaper at later they gave me carte-blanche to be the 16, for a couple of student papers at 23, and editor, main writer, art director and designer ATG: Please tell us where you were born, of a new quarterly magazine, which I called what sort of education you had, how you come got my first professional assignments at a daily newspaper during college as a theatre Druk. The English phrase that explained to speak such fluent English, and why you that versatile Dutch word was: “Druk means chose to become a journalist. critic. For a while I was a somewhat known critic of new theatre in Holland, Belgium and printing, pressure, busy and crowded.” All JM: I was born in The Hague, a centre Italy. But things shifted. They became really true, and all applicable to a designer’s life. of Dutch rock and pop music in the ’60s and interesting to me personally in the late 1980s, So people in Belgium and the Netherlands ’70s. Today it’s the place where the Royal when I chanced upon people who were getting identified with that mag’s name. I really Art Academy (or KABK) runs one of the famous as trailblazers of communication. I met enjoyed watching, up close, the adventures world’s most renowned type design courses. Neville Brody in London, and Emigre’s Rudy in the laboratory that was digital type design As a teenager I was already writing and de- Vanderlans, a fellow Dutchman, in Berkeley. in the 1990s and early 2000s. signing magazines and drawing logos for fun. I did what was natural to me: I interviewed My work for the regional FontShop I didn’t really consider studying at the KABK, them, and published about them. That’s how helped finance the research for my first books because there were such talented illustrators in my old hobbies became my profession, and I on graphic design: a Dutch-language history my high school class that I was totally intim- rolled into the typographic world. of graphic design since 1945 in The Hague, idated. Also, I didn’t think of graphic design ATG: Your CV includes not just your work and my encyclopedic survey of type and let- as a skill you could learn. But throughout my as a journalist since 1980, but also your work tering in the Netherlands, which came out in studies I continued making publications and as an author, designer, teacher, and perform- 2004. For both books I interviewed perhaps posters. Nevertheless, language was my main er. Do you think of yourself primarily as a a hundred designers of all ages, which was focus. At school I had taken all three foreign journalist or as something else? fantastic fun. languages — English, French and German — After I moved to Berlin I worked for plus Latin. At 18, I decided to study modern JM: If I had to choose one word that FontShop International for a while, making Latin at university. That is: Italian. Which describes me, I’d say: critic. Of the arts, of an exhibition and a book about the FontFont became my other second language. My first typography, of society. And a DJ, which is type library with Erik Spiekermann. But second language is English. I’ve been writing also in my CV. after that they didn’t see a role for me, and I mainly in English for the past 15 years. Dutch ATG: Holland is a very well-established continued to design and occasionally translate is such a small culture… Now that I live in Ber- center of publishing, boasting such venerable books for publishers in the Netherlands and lin, German is becoming my fourth language, institutions as E. J. Brill, Wolters Kluwer, Belgium (later I wrote a few for Gestalten in which used to be French. I have no trouble and Elsevier. Did this have anything to do Berlin). But then I was fished up by various switching from one language to another, and I with your interest in such a specific aspect companies in the type trade. Ever the free- don’t consider that a great skill. Just something of design? If not, what is the origin of your lancer, I worked for Linotype, LucasFonts, I do without great effort, like dancing. interest in type design? continued on page 41 40 Against the Grain / June 2018 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> JM: I was on the fence for a long time. you have a projected timeline for its publica- Interview — Jan Middendorp The advantages of an international publisher tion? Once the book is re-published how will from page 40 are obvious. To find your book in a book- interested readers and libraries get copies? shop in Paris or São Paulo is a thrill, and that JM: In 2000, while living in Belgium, I and finallyMyFonts . Edited their newsletters happens thanks to large-scale distribution. for nine years, and fought for quality control, founded Druk Editions (named after the one- Not easy to pull that off on your own. But man magazine I made for FontShop there) creating an internal group I called the Review having written and co-edited more than a Team. to publish my very first type book: Lettered , dozen design books, I did have some experi- about the work of Brussels type designer and ATG: If you were just beginning your ences that were a bit less satisfying. I wrote artist Clotilde Olyff. So I thought that in career today, do you think you would still and designed a book that teachers in Europe order to revive Dutch Type, it would be neat become interested in type design? and the U.S. praised as the only typography to revive Druk Editions as well. primer their students thoroughly enjoyed, but JM: It’s complicated. Its research compo- my small Dutch publisher lacked international I fortunately have some time to organize nent has become very technical, and estheti- punch to make Shaping Text a real success. distribution, and collaborate with larger com- cally the spirit is not as subversive as 20 years panies to do that professionally. back. There’s still a sense of adventure, but a As for Dutch Type, my original idea was to different kind of adventure.