“In the same way that everyone supports bio-diversity and eco-diversity, why can’t we support typo-diversity?” Megan Gannon interviews Melbourne typographer Stephen Banham.

Pound the footpath through a single city block and take note of all the signs, ads and public notices in your path. ‘For lease’ signs, dance party flyers, business names stencilled on shop windows. For Melbourne graphic designer Stephen Banham, typography – the study of typefaces –has a cultural relevance far greater than the font menu on Microsoft Word.

Before we go any further, some definitions and clarifications: a “typeface” is the specific style of a particular font. Before the advent of digital printing and publishing, typefaces were carved from metal and their impressions printed on paper with ink. But according to Stephen, the gradual demise of this archaic trade has not signalled the end for typographers or lovers of typefaces. “I think there has been an enormous resurgence in the interest of typography,” he said. Emerging from the narrow realm of the printing trade, he said the “general community” now interacted with typography, not to mention graphic design in general, far more closely.

Whether its Arial for emails or Times New Roman for office meeting minutes, everyone who uses a keyboard and computer will have a natural preference for one over the other. “Every single day people have to make decisions about what typeface they use for a particular context,” Stephen said.

The Melbourne designer, lecturer and author quite rightly lists ‘typographer’ as his job description. His design studio in Flinders Lane’s retro Carlow House building is called Letterbox, and it has a strong focus on designing custom typefaces for clients. He warns students in his “Typography and Identity” lectures at Melbourne’s RMIT university that once they start analysing the signs and lettering that surrounds them, it’s impossible to ignore the unconscious messages. “It’s certainly called a curse by the students but I call it a blessing. I think any form of extra awareness about an aspect of the world for me is a blessing,” he said.

Type’s function to ‘tell’ includes utilitarian purposes like highway signage, but its power to ‘sell’ or seduce is a more subliminal affair. Stephen doubted many normal people (read: non-designers) would engage in the power of typography if discussion stuck to aesthetics, but in studying its power to ‘sell’ typography can be as culturally relevant as art or architecture. “The connection between the cultural history of a city and its typography is very strong,” Stephen said. “There’s an old quote that says ‘Whenever I see Gill Sans I can’t help but hear the voice of an English narrator’, in the same way that you see a Fiat or a Ferrari and think of Italy. There are certain typefaces that reflect in very pure and direct ways,” he said. “Australia doesn’t have that direct connection between a typeface and a culture. And I actually see that as a great thing, a really good thing,” Stephen said.

Challenging designers to come up with new and revolutionary ways to display text is Stephen’s main prerogative. Sure, he’s a designer who creates new typefaces when the creative brief calls for it, but his passion for “typodiversity” runs deeper than his drive for new jobs. His mission is to stop public spaces becoming homogenised by the same boring typefaces – too often the outcome when corporate branding blankets the visual environment.

“In the same way that everyone supports biodiversity and ecodiversity, why can’t we support typodiversity?” Stephen admits his field of interest ‘becomes a left-wing project’ when focusing on how big business comes to regulate the landscape. “You look at Myer [in Melbourne’s CBD] – what’s the effect of style guiding an entire block?” he said. “We do live in a world where smaller companies and smaller voices are being silenced by much larger forces. The diversity of voices and viewpoints is beginning to diminish and I don’t think that is a very good thing for us. But then on the other hand there is an enormous growth of channels of media like the internet, so as one begins to dwindle I guess there are always outlets for people to express their diversity, so it’s not all bad,” Stephen said.

He is best known in design circles for his Death to Helvetica campaign in the late 1990s which garnered him national and international media coverage. Stephen’s one-man protest was born when his research into typography in public space revealed Helvetica’s supremacy. “One great argument that graphic designers use is that it’s neutral,” he said. Considering companies as large and far-reaching as Nestlé, American Airlines, Intel and Toyota all use Helvetica in their corporate branding, the campaign challenged designers to fight its domination of the visual landscape. Critics and design experts have said Helvetica conveys an image of modern efficiency, but its political connotations – being the typeface of choice for so many corporations – imparts an unavoidable aftertaste when it’s in the public space. “That to me is the voice of authority,” Stephen said.

The cult following for the campaign’s Death to Helvetica T-shirts demonstrated a rare instance where typography was discussed beyond the small realm of designers obsessed with typefaces. But there’s been a resurgence of interest in Helvetica’s cultural significance this year, as the design world celebrates the san serif typeface’s 50th birthday. It was the subject for an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and a feature documentary, Helvetica, which had its Australian premiere in Melbourne in July. Stephen said the documentary did a lot more than merely celebrate the typeface, and it focused on the cultural role of graphic design. “I actually got quite a lot of confused feedback from people, [but] the film is very much about the debate, so it made perfect sense for us to be involved with bringing it out. It was a really good way to articulate our arguments,” he said.

First published in 2007 at www.smallust.com