Typographic Circle (or TypoCircle as it‘s more commonly known) is a social organisation for anyone interested in type and typography. No entry requirements or qualifications are needed to join, just an interest in and love of type. 

Typographic Circle began life as The Type Directors Club of London in 1978, following on from the original Type Directors Club of New York. The role of a type director was mainly held in advertising agencies, and the London Type Directors Club was started by the legendary Maggie Lewis who cut her teeth working at the influential ad agency Collet Dickinson Pearce (CDP) in the 70s. The inaugural committee had members such as Ed Cleary and its first president was David Abbott (of AMV fame). The organisation changed its name to the Typographic Circle to avoid confusion with the New York ADC. 

Circular, the magazine of the Typo Circle, was launched in 1993 as a platform to keep members up to date with news, information and events. During the early 90s it was designed and produced by committee member Tim Fendley of MetaUnion (later MetaDesign) who produced five issues. 

Domenic Lippa became editor, art director and designer of Circular, starting with issue 8 in 1998. He then became Chair of the organisation in the late 90s. Over the next 25 years, Domenic has worked on every issue of Circular, including issue 21 which was produced during the Pandemic. Domenic explains: “The Typo Circle is purely social, and a broad church with very different points of view as to what constitutes ‘good typography’. I think Circular is here to challenge these traditions.”

Domenic began working on issue 22 along with the current Chair Louise Sloper (Here. We. Go. Studio) and Vice-Chair Jim Sutherland (Studio Sutherl&). Over the recent years there has been a clear step-change in readers and members' habits, wanting something more portable for their commutes. Along with this, the ability to use QR codes to access the talks and the potential cost-savings in posting led them to looking at a smaller 'half-size' that would be the new format going forward. Jim and Domenic agreed that if we were to go smaller in size, they needed to increase the production quality to effectively 'double-up' the desirability of the issue.

As Typo Circle had kept the talks schedule running throughout the Pandemic through many online presentations, the editorial team had the idea of using the recordings of these talks to inform the content for the next issue of Circular. 

Domenic also felt that the time was right for the magazine to take on a new visual direction, and he invited Jim Sutherland to work with him on the new design, shaping the look and feel for future issues. 

Domenic comments: “The process was incredibly easy and enjoyable. Both Jim and I have a love of books and printing and wanted from the outset to create a design that was a celebration of the printed form. We established some ground rules and chose two typefaces we both like— Akzidenz-Grotesk and Baskerville. We both liked the idea of duality and tension within the design. I started to explore how the typography could be structured whilst Jim explored how the imagery could work.”

The pair met up several times in their respective studios to share ideas and explore different directions. They wanted to feature exploration as well as include an element of surprise. The pair’s first idea was to just print QR codes for the online events, but this idea was dismissed fairly quickly. 

All the speakers were sent the same list of questions to answer, and the responses were illuminating, with each designer offering a very different viewpoint. It was decided that as links to the talks were included in the publication, it wasn’t necessary to represent the contributors' work in a traditional way. As a result, images were overlapped on spreads, with some visible and some not, creating a textural and very engaging way to show the work. Fluoro orange features throughout, accentuating the multi-layered effect.

In addition, the 14 random dust jackets were created by taking different running sheets, passing them through the presses twice to create an eclectic over-laid effect with the 22 monogram on the cover and the Typo logo and Circular name on the back and spine in reflective silver foil applied on top.

As both Jim and Domenic are avid book and print collectors, they worked closely with the printer Richard Davey from Empress Litho and G.F. Smith to fully realise the potential of the publication.

The overall experience is a magazine that’s highly original in its use of imagery, colour and structure, even to the extent that the introduction and colophon are positioned two-thirds into the magazine (and not at the front or the end where it’s usually found).

It was important to Domenic that the process and playfulness were obvious to readers of Circular: “I wanted the members to feel that, rather than producing a safe and traditional design, as designers we enjoyed making it and put in 100% effort into creating the latest issue.”

Jim Sutherland adds: “As many of the recorded talks were online, we were both keen to make this issue a real celebration of physical and tactile print. We wanted to embrace as much chaos and happenstance as possible with overprinted images and fluorescent and foil. The overprinting approach was a way of unifying disparate projects from different speakers. We also created large fluorescent, abstract monograms for each speaker. We were determined to make it experimental and unexpected. We wanted to embrace the randomness of overprinting the running sheets. Working in each other’s studios, and talking over different design references from our libraries, was a delightful process. Lots of talk & play & joy & ink.”

Circular is only available to members of the Typographic Circle, find out more about membership here.

Editors: Valerie Geiger, Domenic Lippa, Jim Sutherland

Photography by G.F. Smith & Tian Khee Siong