For Ben Bos’s 80th birthday in 2010, his wife Elly Bos asked Adrian Shaughnessy to write a short text about Ben for inclusion in the book she produced as a birthday celebration. This is a slightly edited version of that text. _ When Elly Bos asked me to write an introduction to a book celebrating Ben’s 80th birthday, I did something I hadn’t done before, I read Ben’s biography Design of a Lifetime. I knew the book well, but I only knew it as a compendium of Ben’s striking graphic design. I hadn’t read the text. This was remiss of me: the text is extraordinary. Ben’s place in graphic design history is secure. At its best, his design is characterised by...

Simon Johnston was educated at Bath Academy of Art and at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland. In the 1980s he co-founded the design studio 8vo in London, and was instigator and co-editor of the typography journal Octavo. Later he relocated to California, where his current design practice, Simon Johnston Design, focuses on publications for galleries and museums. He is a professor and Creative Director of the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography (HMCT) at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. In 2017 he launched the publishing house Verb Editions (.com). He is contributing a foreword to the forthcoming book, Octavo Redux. Your current practice encompasses design, teaching, publishing and art. Do you bring the same sensibility to each of these disciplines, or...