The Arts & Culture Journal

Mark Andrew Webber is a graphic designer and artist with near unrivalled passion toward his work. His sheer output over the last 5 years has seen him scoop numerous prizes and awards (including a linocut design for the front cover of houses Magazine) and most recently an Art Director’s Club silver award.

We spoke to him on his return from New York, where he collected the prestigious Club award, yet typically, his focus was not on his latest achievements but on a vast array of other personal projects he is in the middle of executing.

Shiny New Ideas is a collection of hand-crafted letter forms made of coloured ice. Mark spoke of the painstakingly long process of creating the letter-forms that began to change appearance instantly on completion.

It was this metamorphosis of the visual aesthetic that interested the artist that does much to reveal the fickle yet persuasive nature of typefaces. With many ‘safe’ choices of typeface used commercially, this project highlights what different impressions type can give – often contradictory to the actual ethos of market-driven commerce.

To date Mark’s most successful work has been his lino cut series entitled Where in the World. In 2006 his typographic map of New York won countless admirers, so much so that the ISTD (International Society of Typographic Designers) requested another map, this time of London, especially for the London Design Festival.

Rubbing shoulders with acclaimed designers including Alan Fletcher, Ken Garland and Derek Birdsall, Mark’s lino-cut work is a refreshing change in an industry almost entirely dominated by computer-produced design..