Award-winning designer Stephen Farrell creates work
that is intricately detailed, avowedly non-commercial,
and unabashedly intellectual. Farrell designs experimental
fonts and fiction, and he teaches at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. Projects include the novel VAS,
a full-on collaboration with author Steve Tomasula. Farrell’s
digital typeface Volgare is based on a 1601 Florentine
manuscript written by an anonymous clerk. (Farrell studied
the original at Chicago’s Newberry Library.) Volgare includes
over 500 distinct glyphs, including ligatures, word endings,
and combination characters—each one is raw and imperfect,
erupting on the page like an abrasion or scar.
MICA visiting artist, Spring 2008.
Stephen Farrell in the AIGA Design Archives
Stephen Farrell on FontFactory
Stephen Farrell in Loud Paper Magazine
