Rian Hughes

Rian Hughes
Nationality	British
Education	London College of Printing
Known for	Illustrator, comics artist, cover artist, typographer, type designer, graphic designer, writer
Notable work	Logo-a-gogo: Branding Pop Culture,Korero Press,2018 Cult-ure: Ideas can be Dangerous,Carlton Books, 2015 "XX: A Novel, Graphic," Picador, 2020 "The Black Locomotive," Picador, 2021 "Rayguns and Rocketships: Vintage Science Fiction Book Cover Art," Korero, 2018
Website	devicefonts.co.uk

Rian Hughesis aBritishgraphic designer,illustrator, type designer,comics artistandnovelist.

Overviews

Hughes has written and drawn comics for2000 AD,Vertigo CMYK andBatman: Black and White,and designed forDC ComicsandMarvel.His designs and illustrations are published widely across the UK and US publishing, music, and advertising industries. His recent novels areXXandThe Black Locomotive.

Biography

Early career

Hughes graduated fromLondon College of Printingand was employed at various advertising agencies where he worked forID magazine,Smash HitsandCondé Nast.At the same time he was drawing his own comics, and got involved with theBritish small press comicsscene of the time.

Comics involvement

Hughes' first graphic novel wasThe Science Servicefor Belgian publisher Magic Strip. This was followed by "Dare"forFleetway’sRevolver,an “iconoclastic revamp of the ’50s comic heroDan Dare”written byGrant Morrison.His strips from the "Galaxy’s Greatest" have been collected inYesterday’s Tomorrows( "Dare", "Really and Truly" plus others) andTales from Beyond Science,written byMark Millar,John SmithandAlan McKenzie.More recently he wrote and drew aBatman: Black and Whitetale for DC Comics, contributed toVertigo: Magenta,and was reunited with Morrison for two stories inHeavy Metal.As part of Morrison'sThe Multiversity,he designed the definitive Map of the Multiverse,DC Comics' overview of all their alternate realities.

Design and illustration

Example of Rian Hughes' illustration

Through the 1990s, aided by the introduction of the Macintosh, Hughes pushed his illustration work in a more stylised graphic direction. Adopting first Freehand than Adobe Illustrator, he used expanses of flat colour and texture in asymmetric and dynamic layouts, his characters became more elegant and exaggerated, and the type, generally custom designed for each illustration, became an integral part of his imagemaking process. This flat vector style has been dubbed "Sans Ligne" in reference to the European "Ligne Claire" school by artist Will Kane. Hughes considers his combination of design, illustration and typography to be a return to the working methods of the poster artists of the early 20th century, a period when artists like the Stenberg Brothers, Cassandre andJean Carlucombined type, image and layout to achieve a dynamic, integrated whole.

Hughes' design for the music industry includes album artwork forUltravoxand Oxford-based rock group The Winchell Riots. In 2007 he collaborated with exSpice GirlGeri Halliwellon a series of six children's books,Ugenia Lavender.Further work included the animated on-board safety film for Virgin Airlines, a Eurostar poster campaign, and a collection forSwatch.

Now widely copied, the influence of Hughes' illustration style can be seen in advertising, on covers for mass-market women's paperbacks, children's books and editorial illustrations worldwide. Roger Sabin, writing forEyemagazine, has called Hughes “one of the most successful and prolific designer/illustrators of the past 20 years”.A retrospective monograph collecting Hughes' early work,Art, Commercial,was published in 2001. His design work, including logos forBatman,theX-Men,Superman,The AvengersandJames Bond,is collected in the Eisner-nominated bookLogo-a-Gogo,published byKorero Pressin 2018.

Type design

Selection of fonts designed by Hughes and released through his Device foundry

Hughes has described typography as "the particle physics of design". His early fonts were released as part ofFontShop’s FontFont range. He set up his own foundry Device Fonts in 1993, through which he has released many designs including typefaces originally designed for clients as diverse asMac User,2000ADandThe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Many of Hughes' fonts were created for specific design commissions, and their names reflect this. The chunky no-nonsense Judgement family was commissioned for2000 AD,home ofJudge Dredd.Metropol Noir, created specifically for the BDA Gold Award-winning 1996MTV Europe Music Awardsprogramme, is named after the Paris hotel Hughes was put up in for the event. One of his most widely-used fonts isKorolev,based on signs in a photograph of a 1937 Red Square Parade and named afterSergei Korolev,the lead Soviet rocket engineer throughout the Cold War.

Ten Year Itch,cataloguing the first ten years of Device Fonts, was published in 2005.Typodiscographycovers all of Device Fonts' releases up to 2020.

Books and novels

Recent books by Hughes himself includeCustom Lettering of the 20s and 30s(the third in a trilogy ofCustom Letteringbooks), the wordless graphic novelI Am A Number(published byTop Shelf),Soho Dives, Soho Divas(Image Comics), his manifestoCult-Ure: Ideas Can Be Dangerous(Fiell), andRayguns and Rocketships: Vintage Science Fiction Book Cover Art(Korero, 2022).

In 2020 Hughes turned his hand to fiction and publishedXX,a graphic novel about a signal from space praised for its innovative use of fictitious articles, Alpha bets, a lost sci-fi novella, and other elements that draw on Hughes' experience as a designer and typographerHughes’ second novel,The Black Locomotive,contains similar graphic contrivances. Writing forThe Times,Simon IngsnamedThe Black Locomotive“one of the ten best sci-fi novels of 2021”.

Bibliography

Comics

• The Inheritors(Modern Era Editions, 1988)
• The Science Service(script byJohn Freeman) (ACME/Eclipse, 1989,ISBN0-913035-86-6)
• Dare(written byGrant Morrison,a revisionist sequel toDan Dare)
  • "Dare" (Revolver#1–7, 1990)
  • "Dare" (inCrisis#55–56, 1991)
• Tales from Beyond Science(tpb,88 pages,Image Comics,January 2012,ISBN1-60706-471-5):
  • "The Men in Red" (withMark Millar,in2000 ADNo. 774, 1992)
  • "The Music Man" (withAlan McKenzie,in2000 ADNo. 775, 1992)
  • "Long Distance Calls" (with Mark Millar, in2000 ADNo. 776, 1992)
  • "Agents of Mu-Mu" (with Alan McKenzie, in2000 ADNo. 777, 1992)
  • "The Eyes of Edwin Spendlove" (withJohn Smith,in2000 ADNo. 778, 1992)
  • "Secrets of the Organism" (with John Smith, in2000 ADNo. 779, 1992)
  • "The Secret Month Under the Stairs" (withMark Millar,in2000 AD Winter SpecialNo. 4, 1992)
  • "The Man Who Created Space" (withMark Millar,in2000 AD Sci-Fi Special,1994)
• "Really & Truly"(written byGrant Morrison,in2000 AD#842–849, 1993)
• Robo-Hunter(withPeter Hogan):
  • "Slade Runner" (in2000 AD 1994 Yearbook,1993)
  • "Winnegan's Fake" (in2000 AD#852–854, 1993)
  • "Metrobolis" (in2000 AD#904–911, 1994)
  • "War of the Noses" (in2000 AD#1023, 1996)

Collections

• Dare(a collection of the series scripted byGrant Morrison,published 1991)
• Yesterday's Tomorrows(a collection of work scripted byGrant Morrison,John Freeman,Tom De HavenandChris Reynoldsand consisting mainly of previously published work) (paperback, 280 pages,Image Comics,2010)

Illustrations by

• Ugenia Lavender(written byGeri Halliwell), six volumes hardback/paperback, 68 pages,Macmillan,2009)

Novels

• XX(Macmillan,2020)
• The Black Locomotive(Pan Macmillan,2021)

Nonfiction works written and/or edited by

• "Art, Commercial" (Die Gestalten Verlag, 2001)
• Ten Year Itch(Device, 2004)
• Really Good Logos, Explained(with Margo Chase, Ron Miriello, Alex White) (limpback,250 pages,Rotovision,2009)
• Lifestyle Illustration of the 60s(limpback,520 pages,Fiell,2010)
• Custom Lettering of the 40s and 50s(flexi, 580 pages,Fiell,2010)
• Custom Lettering of the 60s and 70s(flexi, 580 pages,Fiell,2010)
• On The Line (with Rick Wright)(hardback, 48 pages,Image Comics,2010)
• Cult-ure: Ideas can be Dangerous(hardback, 320 pages,Fiell,2010)
• Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss(hardback, 280 pages,Titan Books,2011)
• Soho Dives, Soho Divas(Image Comics,2013)
• Custom Lettering of the 20s and 30s(flexi, 576 pages,Korero Press,2016)
• Logo-a-gogo: Branding Pop Culture(Korero Press,2018)
• I Am A Number(Top Shelf,2018)
• Typodiscography(Device Fonts type catalogue, 2019)
• Rayguns and Rocketships: Vintage Science Fiction Book Cover Art(Korero Press,2022)

References

• Interview at Korero Press
• Interview at the Forbidden Planet International site
• Hughes, Rian (2002) "Device: Art, Commercial". Die Gestalten Verlag, BerlinISBN3-931126-86-2
• Rian Hughesat Barney
• Rian Hughesat theGrand Comics Database
• Rian Hughesat the Comic Book DB (archived fromthe original)

External links

• Official website
• Rian Hughes – Design, Tea, and Biscuits VIDEO Talk at Art Directors Club, NYC November 2007
• Assessment of Hughes’ work
• Overview of Hughes’ FontFonts

Interviews

• Logo Geek Interview with Rian Hughes,March 2018
• Creative Characters Interview with Rian Hughes,MyFonts,April 2009
• Kenny (18 May 2007)."Rian Hughes – Yesterday's Tomorrows".Forbidden Planet.