Herbert Spencer was a British designer, editor, writer, photographer and teacher, born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on June 22, 1924, http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,667503,00.html http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=69&fid=276 and died March 11, 2002 (age 77). http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,667503,00.html http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=69&fid=276

From 1949 to 1967, Spencer was editor of Typographica

Typographica

Typographica was the name of a journal of typography and visual arts founded and edited by Herbert Spencer from 1949 to 1967. Spencer was just 25 years old when the first Typographica was issued....

, a design journal that he founded. Thirty-two issues of Typographica were published (in two series of sixteen issues each). Spencer also served as editor of The Penrose Annual

The Penrose Annual

The Penrose Annual was a London-based review of graphic arts, printed nearly annually from 1895 to 1982.Penrose began in 1895 as Process Work Yearbook – Penrose's Annual. Lund Humphries has printed the publication since 1897 and has been responsible for its content since 1906...

from 1964 to 1973. http://www.lundhumphries.com/pages/single/11203.html From 1969 to 1988, Spencer was Art Director at Lund Humphries (Lund Humphries was the publisher of both Typographica

Typographica

Typographica was the name of a journal of typography and visual arts founded and edited by Herbert Spencer from 1949 to 1967. Spencer was just 25 years old when the first Typographica was issued....

and The Penrose Annual

The Penrose Annual

The Penrose Annual was a London-based review of graphic arts, printed nearly annually from 1895 to 1982.Penrose began in 1895 as Process Work Yearbook – Penrose's Annual. Lund Humphries has printed the publication since 1897 and has been responsible for its content since 1906...

). http://www.lundhumphries.com/pages/single/11203.html

In the 1950s, Spencer taught typography

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...

 at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Spencer was a professor of graphic arts at the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

 (RCA) from 1978 until 1985.

Spencer wished to prove that British road signs were chaotic. He therefore photographed road signs and published the results in two photographic essays in Typographica in 1961. As a result the Ministry of Transport set up the Warboys Commission in 1963 to devise a consistent system of signage for British road signs

Road signs in the United Kingdom

Road signs in the United Kingdom conform broadly to European norms, though a number of signs are unique to Britain and direction signs omit European route numbers.-History:...

.

For a more complete biography see Rick Poynor

Rick Poynor

Rick Poynor is a British writer on design, graphic design, typography and visual culture. He began as a general visual arts journalist, working on Blueprint magazine in London. After founding Eye magazine , which he edited from 1990 to 1997, he focused increasingly on visual communication...

's obituary for Spencer printed in The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, March 15, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,667503,00.html

Books

• Design in Business Printing, 1952
• Traces of Man (with photographs by Herbert Spencer), Lund Humphries, London, 1967.
• The Visible Word (legibility studies at RCA), Royal College of Art, London, 1968
• Pioneers of Modern Typography
  Pioneers of Modern Typography
  Pioneers of Modern Typography was a book written by Herbert Spencer in 1969.In both his Typographica journals and in Pioneers of Modern Typography, Spencer brought the typographical experiments and design history of Continental Europe to Britain and the English language. In Lund Humphries...
  
  , Lund Humphries, London, 1969.
• Pioneers of Modern Typography
  Pioneers of Modern Typography
  Pioneers of Modern Typography was a book written by Herbert Spencer in 1969.In both his Typographica journals and in Pioneers of Modern Typography, Spencer brought the typographical experiments and design history of Continental Europe to Britain and the English language. In Lund Humphries...
  
  (revised ediiton by Rick Poynor
  Rick Poynor
  Rick Poynor is a British writer on design, graphic design, typography and visual culture. He began as a general visual arts journalist, working on Blueprint magazine in London. After founding Eye magazine , which he edited from 1990 to 1997, he focused increasingly on visual communication...
  
  ), MIT Press, 2004. (ISBN 978-0-262-69303-5)

External links

• Rick Poynor's obituary of Spencer in the Guardian
• Lund Humphries description of Pioneers of Modern Typography features biographical information on Spencer