About

Paul Barnes (born 1970) is a graphic designer specializing in the fields of lettering, typography, type design and publication design. In the early 1990s he worked for Roger Black in New York where he was involved in redesigns of Newsweek, US and British Esquire and Foreign Affairs. During this time he art directed Esquire Gentleman and U&lc He later returned to America to be art director of the music magazine Spin.

Since 1995 he has lived and worked in London. He has formed a long term collaboration with Peter Saville, which has resulted in such diverse work as identities for Givenchy, ‘Original Modern’ for Manchester and numerous music based projects, such as Gay Dad, New Order, Joy Division and Electronic. Independently he has created identities for luxury Italian shoe manufacturer, Gianvito Rossi and German publisher, Schirmer Graf.

Barnes has also been an advisor and consultant on numerous publications, notably The Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian and The Observer Newspapers, GQ, Wallpaper*, Harper’s Bazaar and frieze. He has designed many books for publishers all over Europe including, Schirmer Mosel, Oxford University Press, the Tate and the iconic Schirmer Graf series.

His interest in the modern and vernacular is encompassed in his type design ranging from the contemporary such as for Björk, through to the extensive traditional British modern, Brunel as seen in Condé NastPortfolio. Whilst consultant to The Guardian he designed Guardian Egyptian with Christian Schwartz. In 2008 Schwartz and Barnes will launch a new foundry of original designs, and also St Bride Typefoundry of traditional British designs.

Following the redesign of The Guardian, as part of the team headed by Mark Porter, Barnes was awarded the Black Pencil from the D&AD. They were also nominated for the Design Museum ‘Designer of the Year’. In September 2006, with Schwartz he was named one of the 40 most influential designers under 40 in Wallpaper*. A year later The Guardian named him as one of the 50 best designers in Britain.