Joseph Churchward Reviewed
by Louise
This beautiful book contains a collection of essays about aspects of New Zealand Type Designer Joseph Churchward’s practice and is interspersed with examples of his hand-designed work from a total of 604 typefaces he has created over a period of 40 years.
David Bennewith describes Churchward’s beginnings in chapter one:
Joseph Churchward was born in 1932 in Apia, Samoa and sent to Wellington, New Zealand at the age of 13 by his grandparents for further education.
He studied art at the Wellington Technical College and at 18 began an apprenticeship as a commercial artist at the Wellington advertising firm,
Charles Haines where he stayed for 12 years. He spent his days there hand-lettering jobs and through the hours of repetitive drawing he came to consider his own letterforms. In 1962 he founded Churchward Lettering Services. In 1969 he published his first typeface, Churchward 69 for one of his biggest clients at the time – Woolworths Supermarket chain.
In October of this year Churchward was awarded The John Britten Award 2009 by dinz.
Joseph Churchward has to date 604 typefaces to his name and at the age of 76 continues to work from his home in Wellington – of course still hand-designing all of his work.
This book celebrates the work of the most prolific typeface designer in New Zealand history to date.
With only 550 copies published you’d better get in quick to secure one of the remaining copies to call your own.
Joseph Churchward is available from Gordon Harris.
Images thanks to Clouds Publishing
by Louise Kellerman
Leave a Reply
Sep 29th
2010
November 20th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Great book have a look every time I go to Gordon Harris. But due to the limited run the price is relatively high. You can pick up ‘National Grid’ 4 which has a decent feature on Joseph Churchward’s work from endemicworld.com
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Can you please actually review these things, not just copy/paste the blurb? Your honest opinion is valid and welcome.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Thanks for your feedback Jane.
I found it to be a great book that drew long overdue attention to a New Zealand graphic design icon. The overall design and production values of the book are of a high quality and warrant the shelf price of $140.
It’s great to see a graphic design book celebrating one of our own.
August 26th, 2010 at 2:49 am
In The National Grid #6 I talk to Noel Waite about this book in relation to the idea of designers ‘playing’ with history. Noel is quite critical of David’s publication for not providing enough social context. I try to go into bat for David by suggesting that because he’s a designer he deals with raw history in a very different sort of way. I’m not sure I articulate that very well, but for anyone who’s interested TNG #6 is out very soon. Launch at S/F on the 8th of Sept.