How did a young man with “authority issues” become a world-class typeface designer and find happiness in one of America’s most scenic spots?

David Berlow lived in a dilapidated trailer at the back of his property while his house was being built on Martha’s Vineyard. His stove was a barbeque grill outside the trailer and his bathroom the portable toilet used by the builders. The trailer, however, had power for his computer and a satellite dish connected to the internet. Life may have been a little rugged but Berlow continued to deliver his projects. Berlow can be labeled as an iconoclast. He has also been accused of being quirky and, at times, difficult to work with. He never, however, compromises his craft.

THE POWER OF A LOGO
Berlow’s career in the graphic arts began while he was still at the University of Wisconsin. “I was a fine arts major and a friend approached me to draw a logo. I guess he figured drawing was drawing. The logo was for a local travel agency—and what I drew turned out to be completely typographic.” One could assume that Berlow became hooked on type from that point on. This was not the case.

The logo project did, however, open Berlow’s eyes to the world of graphic design. After graduation, he moved to New York and took a job in an advertising agency. It lasted two months. “I learned pretty quickly that the New York agency scene wasn’t for me,” he recalls. “I just couldn’t fit in with the structure—I probably also had authority issues.” Rather than letting life drag him around by the collar, Berlow put together a plan. “I figured I would spend a few years drawing letters, a few years learning photo editing, then work as the art director for a music magazine like Rolling Stone or Spin.”

PUTTING THE PLAN INTO ACTION
Applying for work at Marvel Comics, a diploma factory, and at Mergenthaler Linotype’s newly opened New York drawing office was Berlow’s first step. Linotype made the first offer, and Berlow took the job. “The money wasn’t great,” he remembers, “but the job was fantastic. I discovered that you could actually get paid to draw letters all day long.” After working at Linotype for a while, Berlow did consider making the change from type to photography but realized that he had grown to love the work of drawing alphabets and made the decision to stay with letters.

One would think that when the management of the Linotype design office left the company to found Bitstream in 1981, Berlow would be part of the team. Actually, while he was one of the first designers to be hired by Bitstream, his acceptance wasn’t unanimous. “I wasn’t exactly a stable cannon,” he recalls. “Some of the founders of Bitstream weren’t so sure I’d be an asset to the company.” He eventually proved those naysayers wrong—albeit somewhat grudgingly.

In 1988, Apple Computer paid Bitstream a visit. At the time, Adobe’s PostScript was the only readily available commercial font technology and Apple was looking for a production partner for the company’s new alternative, TrueType. Knowing this would create opportunities for typeface development, Berlow began to think about how to take advantage of the technology.

The following year, Berlow left Bitstream to found The Font Bureau with Roger Black. The company’s first business was providing fonts to Black for his many publication design projects— and helping Apple develop its TrueType typeface library.

Font Bureau’s first offices were in Berlow’s small apartment in the posh Beacon Hill section of Boston. He would eat, sleep, and work in the same 840-square-foot space. When the business began to grow, Berlow hired his first type designer, Jill Pichotta, and discovered he could no longer start the business day in his bathrobe.

As the business continued to thrive, Berlow hired more designers, all of whom worked in his apartment. When he began having client meetings and private phone conversations in his car, he realized that it was time for a bigger, and more private, space.

Berlow continued to live in his Boston apartment until one year, his financial consultant told him he needed to “burn off” some income to avoid a heavy tax hit. It had been some time since he had taken a real vacation, so he decided to spend a month on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts and one of the most picturesque spots in America. Berlow fell in love with the island’s scenic beauty and rustic charm. The following year, he spent another month on the Vineyard. On the third year, Berlow decided to stay.

A DIFFERENT DESIGN PROCESS
Most typeface designers begin the process of developing a new face by creating what are called “control characters.” These set the foundation for the rest of the design. Some begin by drawing the capitals O and H and lowercase n and o. These four characters provide a wealth of information: the weights of round, straight, and horizontal strokes, counter shapes and dimensions, the spacing of round to round, round to straight, straight to straight-sided characters in both caps and lowercase, and the proportional relationships between the capital and lowercase letters. Once these characters are established, the designer can then use this basic foundation to draw the letters necessary to set a keyword; Hamburgerfonts is one of the more common. This allows the designer to build on the design concepts and prove their worth, or modify them as other characters are developed. Once the designer is satisfied with the keyword, the rest of the alphabet is drawn using these letters as the basis.

Berlow doesn’t work this way. “I’m an ‘A to Z’ kind of guy,” he says. “It would take me about four to five hours to draw the letters for Hamburgerfonts. If I invest a couple more, I can draw the entire lowercase alphabet. My customers don’t want to see anything less than a font, and that’s what I send them to evaluate.” Obviously, this system has proved successful for Berlow.