Christian Schwartz has partnered with Paul Barnes to form Commercial Type, a new type foundry based in London and New York. Please click here to visit our site.
RETAIL CUSTOM UNFINISHED EARLY WORK
ABOUT
Bio Client List Contact

   

Schwartzco is the studio of Christian Schwartz (b. 1977), a type designer and typography consultant based in New York City and a partner in the typefoundry Commercial Type with London-based designer Paul Barnes.

A graduate of the Communication Design program at Carnegie Mellon University, Schwartz first worked at MetaDesign Berlin, developing typefaces for Volkswagen and logos for a number of corporations. He then returned to the US and joined the design staff at The Font Bureau, Inc., working for a wide range of corporate and publication clients.

Schwartz set out on his own in 2001, first forming Orange Italic with product designer Dino Sanchez and recently Schwartzco Inc.. He has released fonts with Village, FontFont and with digital type pioneers Emigre. Schwartz also designed the widely-used Neutraface family, based on the work of modernist architect Richard Neutra, for release by House Industries, who reissued Orange Italic's infamous Luxury Collection in 2006. Schwartz has also released a number of typefaces through Font Bureau, including the popular Farnham, used in Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone, and Amplitude, which was first seen in the pages of Wallpaper*.

Many of Schwartz's typefaces have been proprietary designs for publications, including the US edition of Esquire, the New York Times, Roger Black's redesign of the Houston Chronicle, and the extensive Guardian Egyptian family, with Paul Barnes, for The Guardian's dramatic new look in 2005. Schwartz has also designed typefaces for corporations including Bosch and Deutsche Bahn, both with design luminary Erik Spiekermann, and reinsurance giant Munich Re, with Kai Bernau and Susana Carvalho at Atelier Carvalho Bernau. Since 2004, Schwartz and Barnes have collaborated on most of their projects, including typefaces for the Empire State Building and Condé Nast Portfolio, and they decided to formalize the partnership in 2007 with the formation of Commercial Type. The company publishes retail fonts developed by Schwartz and Barnes, their staff, and outside collaborators, and also represents the two when they work together on typedesign projects.

Schwartz was awarded the prestigious Prix Charles Peignot in 2007, given every four or five years to a designer under 35 who has made "an outstanding contribution to the field of type design" by the Association Typographique Internationale. As part of the team responsible for the redesign of The Guardian, Schwartz and Barnes were shortlisted for the Designer of the Year prize by the Design Museum in London. The pair were named two of the 40 most influential designers under 40 by Wallpaper* in 2006, and Schwartz was included in Time magazine's 2007 "Design 100". Also in 2007, Schwartz and Spiekermann received a gold medal from the German Design Council (Rat für Formgebung) for their Deutsche Bahn typeface system. Schwartz's typefaces have been honored by the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the New York Type Director's Club, and the International Society of Typographic Designers, and his work with Barnes has been honored by D&AD. Additionally, Schwartz has lectured extensively at conferences and to students throughout the US, Europe and Asia.