— Swiss Legacy

Interview with Mark Blamire, Blanka / Neue

From left to right: Michael C. Place, Mark Blamire, Wim Crouwel, Aiden Grenelle.

For the opening of “50-Helvetica” exhibition at Design Museum in London, Mark Blamire co-founder of this event (with Richard Seabrooke, Candy), explain us his relationship with Helvetica and how he made this event happenned.

Swiss Legacy: Could you please introduce yourself?
Mark Blamire: I am Mark Blamire, although I am known to friends and colleagues as Blam, I was born in Carlisle, England in 1969. Having graduated from Newcastle College in 1991, I went on to serve my design apprenticeship at Stylorouge. In late 1995 I flew the nest and started freelancing work within the music industry. Two years later, I went on to form the partnership Groupe which disbanded in early 2000 from here I formed my own design studio, Neue. Shortly afterwards, alongside running my design company, I became one of the co-founders of Simple Records, where I remained as creative director for a further two years. During the second half of 2005, I took a departure from commission based Graphic Design to concentrate all of my passion and energy into a new concept called Blanka. Blanka is both an online gallery and permanent visual archive devoted to celebrating the very best in creative communication and print on an international stage. It is an open and enthusiastic co-operative of people from all creative disciplines expressing themselves through exceptional, innovative and inspiring printed art. I lives and work in Chobham, Surrey with my wife Sharon and son Jack. My passions are family, Graphic Design, posters, print and Carlisle United. I also have an unwavering fondness for Helvetica.

SL: Can you explain us your relationship with helvetica?
MB: I was probably first introduced to Helvetica while reading Dick Brunas Miffy as a child, but who can be sure if this made any impact on my visual taste buds at this early age. My fondness of Helvetica was the inspiration for my name of my design company “Neue“, am I obsessive?, I am a designer so yes, I guess I am. On a personal level I think the reason I became attached to it or the moment when everything clicked into place for me as a designer, was after creating the Trainspotting poster while working at Stylorouge in 1995. I was really proud to have created it and I still am, the doors that it opened for me as a young designer changed my life. I had used the typeface a lot before but from this point it made an indelible impression on me and implanted something into my tastes that I have continued to rely on it since. Although harking back to the poster, I would liked to have spent longer sorting out the kerning and word spacing, which i feel a bit crude today and forgetting to include the Stylorouge design credit on the poster in the rush to send it to print is something I will regret forever, So these are some of the reasons why I work with the typeface a lot and also the reason why I have revisited the film poster for my piece for the exhibition and it also has a very strong visual bond with the typeface so it made sense for it to be my submission for the show. I also have a lot of respect for the design work of Farrow, Build and Experimental Jetset, I admire their aesthetic choices and I think this is not just because they are at the top of their craft but also they have a strong affinity and connection with this typeface.

SL: Did you remenber the first or the last time you used helvetica?
MB: Not the first time no, but I use it all the time, so every job i complete [90% of the time] will be the last time I used it. I know I will be lambasted for saying that as being lazy and not trying hard enough but I disagree. I went to a Vignelli D&AD lecture in 2006 and he said that he only ever uses six type faces in his repertoire now and this is all he needs, I think he could shorten it to just one and for me it would make a lot more sense, I think the practice of working with only one type face frees you up to explore other areas, if you feel you have discovered the perfect type solution which works for you and gives you freedom to develop and push other areas then this cant be a lazy thing as long as you continue to develop and learn and push yourself within your craft.

I got into trouble once when I first started in the industry, at a studio I was working for who had insisted I was being lazy and just using the default Helvetica type face set up in Quark and this was the only reason i had chosen it for the job, which wasn’t the case. The default version that came installed on the mac was really crude and ugly, so I had manually set it up to be the weight I liked to use the most, probably Helvetica Neue 55 Roman at the time [although I now think Helvetica Neue 75 Bold is the one that ticks the right boxes] and I had also set the typographic preferences and kerning tables and fined tuned them to my precise requirements, so if anything I was being meticulous and not lazy, I had set everything up just so, I didn’t really put up much of an argument at the time though as I was new to the job and i seem to remember the the person didn’t who criticised my laziness didn’t know the names of Muller-Brockmann or Wim Crouwel so I have to say I paid little heed to the lesson and I didn’t stick around in the job for much longer either.

SL: How the idea of making “50 – exhibition” came to your mind?
MB: Michael Place sent me an email back in early 2006 saying ‘It’s Helveticas birthday next year’ and I had just launched Blanka and sent him an email back saying ‘lets do something to celebrate it’, then nothing happened as we both went off and did something else. Then later in the year Richard Seabrooke at Candy put together an exhibition in Ireland called 50×50 which he showed me and I really liked it [and also what Richard was doing with Candy] and I offered to put a link up on Blanka to help him promote it. It was a real success all down to Richards hard work and passion for design and over the year we stayed in contact and after a visit to his design Sweettalks in Dublin last year we became good friends and we discussed revisiting it. I was nervous about just repeating the show as it had been, it felt like it lacked ownership and needed a different direction somehow, so we decided to make all the pieces about Helvetica and tie the 50th birthday into the theme of 50×50, then it took us about 2 months to work out a really good brief to set, I didn’t want to follow up the success of blankas first exhibition ‘1 – an exhibition in mono‘ with something half cocked nor did we want to just create 50 pieces of typography either, as it could have been really dull exercise. So we decided to make it about Helveticas experiences in its lifetime or 50 experiences and events it had encountered from 1957 – 2007, we then agreed the only other stipulation was that if the designer or illustrator used a font it had to be Helvetica.

Mark Blamire at Sweettalk 14.

SL: Do you think that Helvetica is THE timeless font?
MB: Personally Yes, its a classic, However as a typeface it does receive some criticism, which to some degree I understand, people say its ugly and they hate it, and they are right it can be ugly left in the wrong hands, It can look bloody awful. But if you fix the few flaws that it has [particularly in the spacing of the numbers as one example], and you apply your designers craft rather than leave it up to sods law or its default setting it transforms it into something truly beautiful, like all designs and all typefaces, you have to put the time and craft into it, its not just all there at the click of a button. I also think if it isn’t a timeless font and people dont have some degree of affection for it then we would have struggled to find 50 people to contribute to our exhibition and from the response we got and from the time people put into perfecting their pieces this definitely wasn’t the case.

SL: Why did you asked Michael C. Place to design the identity of this project?
MB: Because he is the best in the industry, he is an over achiever and proud of it, he has also been a major contributor to Blanka from the very first steps we took as a company to the present day, he has been influential in so many aspects of our success and development I am eternally greatful and indebted to him and Nicky his wife, although his cats do little to help, other than add the obligatory satisfied purr in appreciation of the latest design on screen. So as long as his very busy schedule will allow, he will continue to get the first bite at everything we do, and he is also a true friend and with the success he has achieved he manages to remain a very decent bloke and I value his opinion and I enjoy the process of working with him, he gives 110% to every project he commits to and if you see how beautifully designed and printed the exhibition poster is for this event I dont think anyone could have done a better job.

SL: Do you have a precise touring schedule for the exhibition?
MB: we plan to visit 10 cities globally with a book launch by Victionary in the spring I have been working to getting the London leg at the Design Museum sorted for its launch this wednesday, and it has been quite a mammoth undertaking to just get to this stage Richard at Candy who has been sharing the fun of putting this event on has been doing this specific aspect of the project.

SL: Thank you Mark.
MB: Cheers Sir.

[tags]Mark Blamire, interview, graphic design, Helvetica, Blanka, Neue, Trainspotting[/tags]