Hamish Muir's response

After mistakenly sending the letter to the accounting office of 8vo (which could have been beneficial seeing that they had to contact Muir of my letters arrival), I received an email response to the questions I asked.

1. Are there any practices, processes or principles shared during the time at 8vo that has been taken into MuirNcNeil? Are these evident in the branding for TypeCon 2016? The potential of the z axis to extend the typo/graphic space. 2. Does the unconventional designs of your typefaces limit its application? What dictates the extent of the pictorial representation in your type design? // 3. What overarching aims do you adhere to whilst creating unconventional type designs? // 4. To what extent does the typeface’s design maintain the recognisability of a letterform? MuirMcNeil typefaces are not primarily intended to be serviceable as carriers of language operating to optimise the reader’s assimilation of information. Indeed they are systems (modulated through form and resolution) of building blocks which allow us to test the limits of readability in the context of the immutability of alphabetic form, and the human perceptual processes at work in the act of reading. 4. Part 2 Were there any cases where the overall art direction of a typeface did not translate well to certain letterforms during the design process? A typeface can be defined as a system of differences. As such, and working within the constraints we define for most of our type systems, we allow some letterforms to push convention beyond breaking point; the test whether they still operate within the context of being set, in words / phrases / sentences  / paragraphs. 5. What were you trying to achieve with the design style of 8vo? Was it an attempt to challenge people’s readability of type? Or was it designed to communicate a certain attitude? 8vo did not set out to have a style – more an attitude; using type as the core ingredient of our work. Making each job better than the last one. Seeing the output of the studio as a continuing and incremental journey toward new areas of experimentation. We were equally at home producing work which challenged the viewer as we were working within functional contexts when appropriate. 6. Do you feel there was an affinity with the freedom of the poster and the visual language you were creating at 8vo? Posters are big (if they are proper posters) – they also have to work from far away; thus, unlike editorial design, designing a poster offers an opportunity to explore scale, type, form and colour in specific ways. 7. After being in the industry for so long, has the way people viewed design changed? Thirty-five years ago, when asked ‘what do you do?’, the answer (‘graphic design’) always needed an explanation by way of a list of examples – typical things graphic designers designed. Now everyone’s a graphic designer (or claims to be) and the only qualifications required seem to be access to a laptop and a subscription to CS. It’s a sorry state of affairs. Not helped by the exponential rise in the number of graphic design courses / student numbers at degree level. In the eighties graphic design was hi-jacked by marketing people (which led to branding). At the moment it’s under threat from too many groups with not quite so hidden agendas – for example critical design (and other pseudo-intellectual nonsense) at one end, and professional educators (who think teaching is a process and that to teach requires no subject expertise) at the other. 8. Without considering technology, what do you think are the main differences between the design from the past and the current one? Graphic design can only be considered in the context of technology. 9. What difference did you find designing in the UK and America? Not applicable. Unless you mean working for clients in the US. There’s no discernible difference that I’ve come across, although both 8vo and MuirMcNeil have been fortunate with their clients. 10. Are there still schools and orientations in design? I’m waiting for the demise of the Parish Magazine School of Graphic Design. Hopefully it won’t be long now, hastened by the last Riso machine ever made finally falling into disrepair.