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ABOUT

John Morgan

John Morgan (1973-2025) founded John Morgan Studio in 2000. He was Professor of Design, Typography and Book Arts (Entwurf, Typographie und Buchkunst) at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. With Adrian Vasquez, John Morgan set up the type foundry Abyme in 2017. At Abyme, he published these typefaces:

• English Egyptian (2011-2017, with Adrien Vasquez). English Egyptian is an interpretation of William Caslon's Two Lines English Egyptian of 1816, considered by some to be the first sans serif printing type to be sold commercially.
• Nizioleti (2011-2017, with Adrien Vasquez). Named and modeled after the nizioleti, or Venetian street signs, Nizioleti is typeface consisting of painted letters stencilled within white plaster panels directly onto the city walls, in use since the early 19th century.

Obituary in Art Review from which I quote: John was born in 1973 in a small Lancashire village, retaining his accent as he studied Typography and Graphic Communication at Reading University. His father, a biochemist whose real passion was stationery, was an inspiration. The teenage John romped through John Berger's Ways of Seeing (1972) from his parents' bookcase and at college he'd get a letter from home once a week in a different typeface, the font fully credited. On graduating in 1995 John took a job in London at graphic designer Derek Birdsall's Omnific studio. On establishing his own practice in 2000, John Morgan Studio, he adopted Birdsall's passion for long client lunches and grappa aperitifs. It proved a winning strategy, attracting early commissions from the Church of England, for a new edition of Common Worship, the Anglican prayer book (passed to John by Birdsall), and the Design Museum, London. Maintaining just a few clients at a time, John could turn his attention from pamphlets to pavements: in 2012 the studio created the graphic identity for the Venice Architecture Biennale; and the following year the studio started on a long-term collaboration on the signage system at Tate Britain (a system that must impede as little as possible on the art, John thought). That the creation of brand and style guides (other clients included the Royal Drawing School) formed a recurring motif in John's work was typical of his forward thinking, generosity and open mindedness---he was aware both of the usefulness of leaving trails of breadcrumbs and the reality that others might work with or rework his designs in years to come. In 2016 John was appointed Professor für Entwurf, Typographie und Buchkunst at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and in 2017 he set up the type foundry Abyme with Adrien Vasquez. The studio continued working on the day-to-day design of ArtReview until 2022, John's atmosphere maintained by the magazine's designers, while the art director's ad hoc emails were as attentive to detail as ever: Just needs a tighter crop perhaps. Just sprained my ankle. I am on codeine and booze, over and out.

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