Herbert Spencer

author

British b. 1924^[1] d. 2002^[1,2] active 1949–1985

Herbert Spencer (1924–2002) was a prominent British typographer, graphic designer, and educator. During World War II, he served as an RAF cartographer. He began his career in academia teaching typography at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1949 to 1955. In 1949, he founded 'Typographica', a design and visual arts journal which he edited until 1967. Spencer became a senior research fellow in the print research department of the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 1966 and served as a Professor of Graphic Arts there from 1978 to 1985. He was also the art director of the Lund Humphries publishing house from 1969 to 1988. His work is noted for its scholarly approach to typography, particularly his research into legibility and the history of modern graphic design.^[1,2,3]

• typography
• graphic design
• legibility
• modernism