Post Typography
Originally conceived as an avant-garde anti-design movement by Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen, Post Typography has come to encompass the pair’s creative collaborations including graphic design, illustration, conceptual typography, and custom lettering, with additional forays into art, apparel, curatorial work, design theory, and vandalism. In 2007, Strals and Willen incorporated Post Typography as a full time design studio, where they continue to work for a variety of clients including The New York Times, U.S. Green Building Council, and Random House. Their work has received numerous fancy design awards and has been featured in such books as Ellen Lupton's textbook Graphic Design: The New Basics, Phaidon's Area 2, and Taschen's Contemporary Graphic Design, as well as a new monograph of the studio’s work by European publisher Pyramyd Editions.
As longtime Baltimore residents, Strals and Willen maintain a strong presence in the local arts and music communities, contributing to numerous art and design exhibitions in Baltimore and beyond. Their posters and T-shirts are collected by high school punk rockers and prominent designers (whom they consider equally important). In 2005 Post Typography curated Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography, a highly regarded art show that has traveled nationally to dozens of galleries and universities over the past five years. Strals and Willen teach classes in design and typography at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and have lectured at the Cooper Union, Minneapolis College of Art & Design, and Harvard University among others. The studio recently wrote and designed Lettering & Type, a book on lettering and typeface design to be published by Princeton Architectural Press in Fall 2009.
In what little free time they have Strals and Willen play and tour as two-thirds of the Baltimore post-punk band Double Dagger, which has released albums on Thrill Jockey Records and Stationary (Heart) Recordings among other labels.
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