Mark Thomson

Recent articles by Mark Thomson

Eye type reviews

Issue 108, Spring 2025

Feature

Four contemporary type reviews by Silvia Sfligiotti, Ferdinand P. Ulrich & Toshiya Izumo, Yara Khoury Nammour and Mark Thomson

Eye type reviews

Issue 107, Winter 2025

Feature

Six contemporary type reviews by Bryan Edmondson, Dan Reynolds, Mark Thomson, Silvia Sfligiotti, Linda Kudrnovská and Robert Newman

Eye type review. Take six fonts

Issue 106, Summer 2024

Feature

A snapshot of contemporary type design, with half a dozen reviews by Mark Thomson, Indra Kupferschmid, Silvia Sfligiotti and Dan Reynolds

Bram de Does: the king of (functional) swing

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Feature

An insistence that technology should match design spurred typographer Bram de Does to create two of the twentieth century’s most beautiful types

Reputations: Fred Smeijers

Issue 90, Summer 2015

Feature

‘My father was a mechanic. Respect – for tools and for the material with which you work – is one thing I got from him. When the chisel is not sharp enough to do a certain job, even if it is just one cut, do not think you can get away with it. Sharpen the chisel properly and only then use it for what you wanted to do.’

Ways of seeing design

Issue 83, Summer 2012

Review

From the breadth and vitality of the recent densely compiled retrospective exhibition of Richard Hollis’s…

Reputations: Peter Biľak

Issue 75, Spring 2010

Feature

‘I have more reasons to make fonts than ever … typeface design is a cumulative process, there are more possible entry points, more references, more inspiration than ever before. As with books, when you engage in reading, it points to more books … you might appreciate the ones you read early on more, because of your new understanding.’

The Catalogue As Exhibition

Issue 63, Spring 2007

Review

An inescapable fact about exhibiting books is that the essential ingredient of a book –…

Reputations: Kris Sowersby

Issue 79, Spring 2011

Feature

‘New Zealand is a young country and hasn’t had the time, or resources to develop a typeface culture. I am free to draw upon multiple influences. I haven’t been taught or exposed to any one particular typographic heritage, so my hand isn’t biased.’

Visions of Joanna

Issue 62, Winter 2006

Feature

For the first edition of ‘An Essay on Typography’, Eric Gill used his new serif font in the manner of a scribe

Mark Thomson

Issue 71, Spring 2009

Feature

‘The variations of nuance and voice are endless’

Design is not a solution

Issue 62, Winter 2006

Opinion

A piece of design is the expression of an idea. It’s not a solution

Recent blog posts about Mark Thomson

Open and shut cases

3 May 2012
Book design, Illustration, Photography, Visual culture

Bracewell’s ‘The Space Between’: the essence of a book as artwork
It is not often that entire books form the material, or part of the material…

Graphic design by Richard Hollis

4 April 2012
Book design, Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Information design, Reviews

Mark Thomson reviews the exhibition at Gallery Libby Sellers in London
There are few occasions when something is genuinely unmissable, writes Mark Thomson, but for designers…