THE MAN WHO IS EVERYONE’S TYPE
Sean Freeman has worked for Nike and rock bands — and if there’s one thing his current Bangkok exhibition proves, it’s that he knows the alphabet intimately
I’ve been very fortunate that I don’t really have to battle with clients, because they tend to come to me
Sean Freeman understands Thailand. He might have not known it before he arrived here, but his “Absolute Siam” art installation feeds right into Thais’ pervasive, photo-obsessed, colour-enthusiast psyche. The installation, located at Siam Center’s Ideopolis, taunts shoppers with alphabetic art made from various materials that pop with harmonious colour.
“I was interested in doing something that people could interact with more. I thought it would be interesting to make an installation of typeface with cushions that people could play with or take photos with. They were great, and they were open to it. All the patterns were based on bold, fashion graphics like stripes, polka dots and marbled patterns,” Freeman said.
The East-London-based typographer-designer-illustrator’s mild manners are at odds with his bold award-winning portfolio, the clientele of which includes juggernauts like Nike, Microsoft, The Guardian, Time Magazine, Audi, the 2012 London Olympics and the rock bands Gomez and Band of Horses.
Star typographers such as Freeman are a rare breed. His designs are unique, meaningful and tell stories unto themselves. Freeman’s marriage of typography and photography are thought-provoking, but never outshine their purpose. The sense of soft humour and style as well as offbeat musing are ever-present.
“I think it’s interesting to take words and add to their meaning, rather than just having pictures. When you can enhance those words, they become more powerful and special. A lot of type people like to make things a little difficult to read, and I like the idea too. But personally, I prefer that anyone can read my work. I like the idea that my grandma could understand it, too. A lot of the time, I work with clients, and I always have to make sure that they’re legible. I always make sure that they’re readable from the beginning,” he said.
Freeman’s wondrous use of real materials in typography renders a strong sense of physicality that is hard to master, and impossible to transfer on digital devices and computers alone, adding further values to his works. For Freeman, whose favourite materials to experiment with are powder and liquid, hand-craftsmanship is relevant as ever.
“When we work with the real things, real elements, little things happen that might not happen when you work with CG. Food is a good example. With food, everyone wants it to look as real as possible. Clients are a lot less keen when knowing that it’s fake. That’s great to me because I love playing with real things even though it can be challenging, but it’s fun. When you work with actual materials, accidents can be fantastic. If I’m on the computer all day everyday, I would find that challenging.” Freeman studied graphic design and advertising at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University in High Wycombe. He graduated in 2007. While at school he initially wanted to concentrate on advertising, but found himself more emerged in graphic design, focusing on typography and illustration. Upon graduation, Freeman took a job at a marketing agency, where he would spend the evenings working on personal projects. His first commission came from The New York Times for “a tiny, tiny piece”. His career grew from there. As more and more commissions began to pour in, he gained the confidence to leave his full-time job and open his own studio, There Is, which he now runs with his wife.
Freeman is also known to toy with photographic manipulation, adding flair to his typography. Although that, much of the time, requires extra help.
“It’s hugely important to collaborate. I also collaborate with my wife, who does model-making and a lot of other things. We collaborate a lot with photographers. It’s fun to work with someone with whom you can add something from your side, and they can add something too. I’d like to do a lot more motion stuff, but I’m not very good at it yet. The technicality of it is still quite hard for me. It’s another body of knowledge that I haven’t mastered yet,” he said.
Freeman has also established himself among in the music scene, designing album covers and gig posters, which are often posted on art and music blogs, where they garner high praise. A self-confessed music addict, Freeman finds inspiration from song lyrics, which always prompt him to come up with ideas on how to manipulate the lines that capture his attention and tug at his heart strings.
“Music is a big part of my creative process. I am inspired by it, and pictures often come to my head when I hear lyrics that I want to bring to life. It helps me to experiment. Band and gig posters are like personal works for me. I have total freedom. I get these amazing artists that I get to work with. They’re the ones that are most fun to work with. They also get a lot of recognition. The budgets are small, but it’s more like a token gesture. You don’t really get money from doing that, but it’s more like a privilege to get to work for bands like The Decemberists or The National,” he said.
Client management and artistic compromise, Freeman said, can be a touchy topic in the commercial art world. But it’s a complication from which Freeman doesn’t seem to suffer.
“I’ve been very fortunate that I don’t really have to battle with clients, because they tend to come to me. When I was working as a designer before I started working on my own, it was a little bit tricky, because you wanted to do something of your own but you couldn’t — there were limitations sometimes in terms of layout and stuff. But now it’s a little less tricky because they come to me because of particular things. I like working with clients because I like to give a lot of options. I’m quite easy. I want them to be happy. Sometimes, when we get to the end of the process, and the results are different from what I want, I also have my own versions of the projects as well. I do one for them and one for me, but they’re normally not that far apart,” he said.
Freeman’s pet project, “Describing Worlds”, which he hopes to have finished by the end of the year, will see 26 pieces that play around the 26 letters of the alphabet, each designed differently and assigned a different word — “furry”, for example, or “kinky”. Freeman said he would love to dedicate all his time to the project, about which he is passionate, but he has a hard time turning down interesting offers that come his way. “Describing Words” seems like a deliberate move towards gallery art and, possibly, a future exhibition.
“I’d love to live in a gallery, but I love being a commercial artist or whatever you want to call it, and I would never change it. Still, I would like to see some of my works in galleries.”
Freeman is also optimistic about the future of typography.
“I’m excited about it. There is better stuff now than when I first started. There are so many styles, so many different people doing it. It’s quite exciting to see how much stuff there is,” he said. “Things just get pushed further and further.”