Kai Bernau

Kai Bernau: "I’m a graphic and type designer. In 2005 I founded Atelier Carvalho Bernau in The Hague with Susana Carvalho. The studio concentrates on reading experiences across different media. Questions about content, an audience’s reading contexts, and concepts derived from these parameters are always central to our work. Other recurring focus points include the object-character of printed matter, material and technical honesty and appropriateness, and using or inventing new technologies and the innate aesthetic qualities they produce. To that end, the studio produces typography, book and editorial design, interactive and web projects, as well as text and display typefaces. In graphic design, Atelier Carvalho Bernau mainly works for clients in the cultural field, both in the Netherlands and internationally. Among their clients are Midway Art in Minneapolis, Culturgest in Portugal, the Mumok in Austria, Octavo publicaties and Stroom in The Netherlands. Their self-initiated design and research projects lead them to new formal and conceptual starting points for their own publications and for clients, such as their “Dear Reader”, or “You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick…”, which led to the series design of Amsterdam’s Octavo publicaties. At Atelier Carvalho Bernau, I design typefaces either as self-initiated projects or as commissions from magazine clients like the New York Times Magazine, Esquire (US), Esquire (UK), or corporate clients such as insurance giant Munich Re. In our self-initiated type design work, we are interested in exploring the intersection of an aesthetic by tools’ “natural” forms and the new aesthetic possibilities they offer".