FUSE

FUSE magazine was about a lot of things, and in many ways, ahead of the curve.
It was about reclaiming typography, exploring form, making it sculptural, organic, show depth, be more architectural. The magazine was about exploring the edges of legibility, abandoning the grid, and making typography beautiful and poetic again.

Some designers created more than one typeface, but here is a list of all of the participants of FUSE magazine and their reinterpretation of typography:

Neville Brody - played with negative space, free form, loss of identity, restructured stories, half this form and half the next form
Gerard Unger - asked the question of why we need 26 characters to communicate...why not just 10?
Barry Deck - grunge, legibility
Paul Elliman - typography about people
Rick Vermeulen - morse code
Phil Bicker - graffiti, tagging
Tobias Frere-Jones - pollution, architecture free form, conversations turned into characters
Cornel Windlin - mechanical
M&Co - uppercase wrong, lowercase right
Mario Beernaert - painterly
David Crow - abstraction of corporate culture
John Critchley - free form body parts, hiding, shredding
LettError - promise
Xplicit FFM - textural
David Crow - DNA
Florian Heiss - surveillance
Function - Tourist version in Japan
Anna-Lisa Schönecker - spoons
Jason Baily - MS

TOBIAS FRERE-JONES

Reactor - Typeface for FUSE magazine

is an American type designer based out of New York. He currently works with Jonathan Hoefler at H&FJ, a font house, that has produced some of the most beloved fonts of our decade. Frere-Jones is best known designing the fonts Gotham, Interstate, and Archer and for participating in FUSE magazine. The photo on the left is an example of his typeface "Reactor" that redefines typography in a polluted sense. The more you type, the less legible it becomes.

Since Frere-Jones is a living designer, he was featured in the film Helvetica. Here is an interview of him and Hoefler that was used in the film.

H&FJ in Helvetica




NEVILLE BRODY

Neville Brody Work Wall

is an English graphic designer, art director, and typographer. He graduated from the London College of Printing and Hornsey College of Art to receive a BFA in Graphic Design. Brody is known for having a strong punk rock influence in his work, which was a popular genre of music in London at the time of his education. In his early years of design, he focused mainly on designing album covers for a variety of bands, such as Depeche Mode and Cabaret Voltaire, but his involvement with The Face Magazine (first publication in 1980) was what really made his name popular. He moved on to work for London Newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer,  and numerous magazines, City Limits, Lei, Per Lui, Arena, and Actuel. 
Brody currently works in his own design studio, Research Studios, alongside Fwa Richards. Their company is located in London, Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona. Anything from typeface, packaging, and website design can be found in their portfolio. Brody is also well known for his involvement/founding of FontShop, a typeface foundry based out of London. He has designed typefaces for FontShop, as well as, FUSE, a magazine that he helped initiate. 

JOHN CRITCHLEY

Critchley's typeface in FUSE, Ollie, which depicted
typography with the sensation of hiding.

is an English typeface designer that joined Nveille Brody's Research Studio. He later became the Art Director of MTV Networks in Europe and more recently was placed as the Art Director of the cultural institution in Europes largest ceneter for the arts, Southbank Centre. He now works in a variety of media for clients, touching on advertising, television, film, publishing, and record companies. His most recent endeavor involved forming Visual Material, which incorporates print, animation, and web design clients. 













JASON BAILEY

Sclerosisscript, a typeface designed to communicate
through the restrictions of MS.

There wasn't a lot of information on Jason Bailey, but I found a quote from him on the subject of his typeface in FUSE, Sclerosis Script, which helps explain his purpose behind the design:

"One of the most frustrating aspects of MS," he says, "is the way in which one's ability to communicate is impaired. I have tried to translate this frustration into the font Sclerosis Script. The letterforms that make up the font are digitized examples of my mother's handwriting, with certain characters having had their 'natural' kerning relationships with other characters greatly exaggerated. Thus, like the condition itself, the experience of using Sclerosis Script cannot be completely controlled."







RICK VERMEULEN 

The packaging design for FUSE 6, which used
morse code as a typographic system

is a graphic designer based out of the Netherlands. He attended Rotterdam Academy and worked regularly for Bert Bakker as a participant in Rotterdam's Graphic Workshops. In the late 70s and Early 80s, Vermeulen was the editor of Hard Werken magazine, a cultural tabloid that made considerable national attention. The company went into financial crisis, relocated to Amsterdam, and renamed the company Inizio. He still works for Vermeulen and has since designed two typefaces for FUSE.
‘I don't think anything designed should be considered as art. It's not only about the experimentation with form. There is always a client’










GERARD UNGER

Decoder typeface featured in FUSE 

is a graphic designer from the Netherlands. He studied graphic design, typography, and type design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Unger has had a very strong academic presence in the world of design. He has taught Typography and Graphic Communication at The University of Reading (UK), Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Amsterdam) and Typography at the University of Leiden. He lectures frequently in Holland and abroad, about his own work, as well as, type design, newspaper design, and related subjects. In his career, he has designed stamps, coins, magazines, newspapers, books, logo's, corporate identities, annual reports, and many typefaces. 
Unger's typeface, Decoder, challenges the idea that we don't need 26 characters to communicate. Why not have a typeface that uses only 10?