Studio Visit at Commercial Type

Based in New York and London, Commercial Type is a joint venture between Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz, who have collaborated on commissioned typeface projects since 2004. The company publishes retail fonts developed by Barnes and Schwartz, their staff, and outside collaborators, and also represents the two and their team when they work together on type design projects. Schwartz, Barnes, and their colleague Greg Gazdowicz will welcome guests for an informal tour of Commercial Type's New York studio in Chinatown, where they'll share inspiration from their library, answer questions about the day to day of running a type foundry, and share archival specimens from the company's history.

Paul Barnes (born 1970) is a graphic designer specializing in the fields of lettering, typography, type design and publication design, and a partner in Commercial Type. Barnes has designed typefaces for a wide variety of clients, including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Visa, Rapha, and science journal Nature.

Christian Schwartz (born 1977) is a partner in Commercial Type and heads up the company's New York office. Schwartz has published fonts with many respected independent foundries including House Industries, Emigre, FontFont, and Font Bureau, and has designed proprietary typefaces for corporations, institutions, and publications worldwide including Bloomberg Businessweek, MoMA, Interview, and T, the New York Times Style Magazine; and in collaboration with Barnes, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Asahi Super Dry, and the Empire State Building.

Greg Gazdowicz (b. 1988) hails from the suburbs of Gaithersburg, Maryland. He escaped to study at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he found his deep passion for graphic design, type design, and cycling. Greg worked as a graphic designer at branding studios, start-ups and non-profits before specializing in typeface design, and he completed the Type@Cooper Extended program in 2014. He has designed typefaces for clients including Google, Mailchimp, and Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.