Adventures in Typography: Spin’s new book about its creative process

Date
27 February 2017

“In a way it’s a love letter to typography,” says Tony Brook, creative director at Spin of the studio’s new book Spin: Adventures in Typography. “We’ve always had a reverence for all aspects of type and wanted to make something that gave us the opportunity for experimentation in the form of playful expressions.”

The journal catalogues the studio’s creative process through an array of monochrome experiments and compositions. “We did some digging around in our recent work, and that was a really good starting point, however, it wasn’t long before we were making new work especially for this. The majority of work featured has been specially created,” explains Tony.

Edited by Tony and Adrian Shaughnessy who he co-runs publisher Unit Editions with, the book is a follow on from the studio’s huge monograph Spin 360º released in 2015. That weighty tome documented Spin’s 20-year history in enormous detail, with this 52-page book it’s “another aspect of the ongoing conversation”, and offers more insight into the freedom and fun behind the studio’s approach.

The process of creating the journal involved “lots of playing, mucking around, and trial and error”. “It was a lot of fun to do and hopefully some of this enjoyment communicates itself,” says Tony. “We wanted to convey a real sense of energy and joy in experimentation. This comes through not just in the letter forms but also in the format of the journal, the materiality of it – that’s why a lot of letterforms have been given silly names.”

More than just a showcase of work from the studio, Tony hopes this will breathe new life into Spin’s work. “Essentially typography has two extremes, the rigorous, refined and legible, and the irreverent, expressive and barely legible (if at all). I’d like to think that it is the start of a whole new tranche of work from Spin where we take this piece as a springboard to move on from in the commissions we receive.”

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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Spin: Adventures in Typography, Unit Editions

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About the Author

Rebecca Fulleylove

Rebecca Fulleylove is a freelance writer and editor specialising in art, design and culture. She is also senior writer at Creative Review, having previously worked at Elephant, Google Arts & Culture, and It’s Nice That.

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