Jeremy Spinks is a fan of Helvetica — both the documentary and the font — and isn’t afraid to wield it confidently in spite of its “cliched” reputation in popular culture. Coincidentally, he’s also just “one Kevin Bacon away” from the type designer of Comic Sans, which he believes gets a bad rap given the way the font is typically handled.

As Creative Director at BowStern Marketing Communications, Spinks spends a good amount of his time immersed in these kinds of thoughts and discussions — thinking, analyzing, and talking about letters and fonts — and holds a specialized degree in typography and graphics communications from the University of Reading in England.

“Helvetica is such a cornerstone of Swiss typography and in a strange way I like it because I was taught not to like it in college,” says Spinks. “It was one of the six or seven default fonts, and we were taught to make a conscious decision to choose a type for a reason. I feel like it’s been given back to me since that movie came out and it’s gotten popular again.”

Meta typeface, by designer Erik Spiekermann, is another favorite. Spinks finds it to be both timeless in appearance, and like an old friend that reminds him of “the time when [he] came to know it.”

Type and design are inseparable concepts for Spinks who will be giving his talk, “A Type Story,” on Tuesday, Oct. 3, at this year’s Design Week Tallahassee. His presentation will recount his 20-year journey in creating Anglia Neue, a new typeface that will be officially unveiled to the public for download following the presentation.

Spinks’ greatest influences on his design work come from the Bauhaus movement, which emphasized the bridging of art and industry. He also appreciates designers like Spiekermann, as well as his former teacher, Gerard Unger. He sees modern aesthetics as being the common thread that binds them all, with a penchant for cleaner, industrial design.

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