Sharing Insights

Hoefler and Director Brian Oakes agreed that even typography’s more esoteric concepts could be brought to life for an engaged audience, and that practical effects, not digital ones, would make this ‘as astonishing as close-up magic.’ Together, they created a series of segments called These Are Letters!, storyboarded by Hoefler and directed by Oakes, in which physical props are manipulated on camera to demonstrate typographic principles. Their colorful classroom of plywood and plexiglas introduces typographic concepts such as fit, spacing, kerning, and ligature substitution, and the many optical illusions that type designers avoid — or employ — in the service of legibility.

Collaboration

‘Great directors are collaborative, not autocratic,’ observes Hoefler, an approach that echoes in his own work as a typeface designer. ‘Directors go into a project with what they hope is a clear vision, they entrust parts of it to people they respect and admire, they hold their ideas gently (eliciting input at every turn), and when outcomes are uncertain, they take the responsibility for making the call.’ Abstract not only documents Hoefler’s work drawing typefaces, it reveals his collaborative relationship with the product designers, marketing creatives, technologists, and businesspeople at his studio, who together shepherd a typeface from idea to completion.