George E. Thompson
George E. Thompson is a graphic designer and type designer whose design work, since 1970, includes product, packaging, promotional, corporate graphics, identity, and web site design. For the past 20 years, he's also been teaching graphic design, typography and design history at Columbia College in Chicago, where he is currently coordinator of the graphic design program.
Because of his interest in letterpress printing, George co-founded Columbia's Calhoun Press, named after John Calhoun, the first printer in Chicago. He also has his own private press, Spurius Press, named after Spurius Carvillus, designer of the letter G. Spurius' first title was "Five American Type Designers", a study of five contemporary women type designers co-written and printed with two of his senior students. He has also published articles in the Caxtonian and the Journal of
Communications.
In 1996, George founded his own type design business, No Bodoni Typography, to market his original typeface designs. (No Bodoni's motto is "I felt bad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no Bodoni.") He is currently working on a history of sans serif typography and an ongoing series of oral history interviews with influential
Chicago designers. Recently, he was honored to have over 50 of his fonts published in Indie Fonts II, a book showcasing digital type from independent foundries.
[George E. Thompson, August 2003]