Adelina Shaidullina: What does Boogy in Boogy Paper stand for? A dance? Or a creature like a Boogeyman?
Julien Priez: It’s more related to dancing. It comes from an old French rap song by NTM called Boogie Man. When I was a teenager and a graphic design student, I was doing a series of covers for made-up magazines, and one of the magazines was called The Boogy Paper. Then social media came, and there were already plenty of other people named Julien Priez on Instagram, so I had to find another name. And I thought about this magazine I was doing.
Boogy Paper calligraphy by Julien Priez, 2014
AS: Are you a big hip-hop person?
JP: Yeah, let’s say it’s my base. When I was younger, I was only into hip-hop because I didn’t know other music. But then when I went to art school, I discovered other things.
AS: What music are you listening to now?
JP: Mainly still hip-hop, but I also listen to electronic music my friends write. I have friends like Mariachi (Nina Garcia) doing experimental music, and I like it, too. Also, I enjoy classical music. And now, as I’m a father, I also listen to traditional French songs.
AS: Lullabies?
JP: Serge Gainsbourg! Also, my daughter really likes heavy metal. So I’m discovering it together with her now.
AS: Wow, she’s a real explorer! Many people online refer to the things you do as typexpressionism. Could you elaborate on what this term means?
JP: I think it’s Steven Heller, the graphic design writer, who described my work like this. The first thing I heard people say about my work is that they relate it to graffiti. But I don’t think it’s related. I think that some of the work my generation or a younger one did was at one time partly influenced by graffiti. But I don’t think our work is directly related to graffiti now. I think the graffiti experience adds expression to type, but you don’t need any graffiti background to do typexpressionism.
It’s just that graffiti was present, and it influenced a lot of people. Still, you don’t need to practice graffiti to be influenced by it.
Boogy Paper zine, 2023
AS: Sounds reasonable!
JP: Also, when you’re in school, your type design should be very transparent because the text should be readable and legible. But legibility
MOD-de Knoop installation and performance by Vincent de Boer, 2021. Image: Robin Meyer
One Stroke Painting Series by Vincent de Boer, 2019. Image: Logman Gallery
AS: Is the Boogy Brut collection an exploration of this legibility spectrum?
JP: Yeah, exactly. Boogy Brut is the best example of it. It’s also very important for me to build a bridge throughout the whole spectrum, not separate things. It’s not that I think it’s very important to connect all the different things, but I think, in this case, it was the right thing to do. It was important for me to say that these typefaces can work together, and to show their common roots.
Boogy Brut type specimen by Marc Smith and Benoît Santiard, 2020
Boogy Brut stickers
AS: You’ve worked with a variety of materials in your practice. You’ve worked with clothing, 4-metre walls, and even a children’s tablet for writing practice. What materials are you excited to work with next?
JP: I really like discovering new tools. Sometimes, like with the drawing tablet from
I don’t know what tools will come next, but I like robot model kits, I got them from Japan. Maybe the next thing I really would love to do is make a custom decal for my robot using my typeface or a typeface developed specially for this. Let’s see!
![18]
Martès × Boogy Brut collaborative collection
AS: Let’s talk about the exhibition you had at the Centre du Graphisme. I wanted to ask how curators approach calligraphers and type designers. Is it different from how they collaborate with traditional artists?
JP: I think it’s different. Because I got the feeling that when I was invited, the museum didn’t really know what I was doing. So I called my own curator and my own graphic designer. And the exhibition was a lot of work because we had to do everything ourselves. I won’t do an exhibition every day, to be honest, but I’m happy because we did what we wanted to the way we wanted to.
AS: Do you think it’s important for calligraphers and type designers to collaborate with traditional museums?
JP: Yes, the exhibition we created was really useful, not only for us but for the public as well. I’m really happy we managed to show this in a national museum where it was free and open for everyone to attend. This exhibition was important for that
The exhibition was based on a very simple concept: to show different scales. We had something very big, something a viewer had to look at from a distance. And on top of that, there were very, very small drawings or prints. The public had to focus and come closer to the wall to see these small pictures. They experienced two different ways of viewing things and for me, it was a way to show that you can create very diverse work within the same discipline.
Boogy Show exhibition, 2024
AS: Type designers often complain about the lack of critique in their field. And artists, they say that art critique is too formal now. What do you think about contemporary critique?
JP: I think the Instagram type design public isn’t always very kind. But as a type designer, releasing a typeface is a really big deal for you. When I release a typeface, I’m my own harshest critic, and I never know if it’s truly ready. But now, I think it’s easier for me to release a typeface because I know more about the process. Being an artist is also really rough. Having an exhibition is like celebrating your
AS: And you are very tired at the end.
JP: Also when you release a typeface, it’s for life, you can change it, revise it, correct it. While an exhibition has an exact duration, it’s not for forever. And to make peace with the duration is hard. I had a problem with museum mediators. One time when I went to the exhibition, I heard a mediator giving a tour, and they were saying that I was a street artist, just because there were very big letters.
And I felt very bad, because I felt that the museum that invited me didn’t understand what I did, even with all the text, all the pictures, all the meetings we did. So it’s not criticism, but it was quite rough to see that even with all the effort you can do, a lot of people won’t understand what you do and why you do it, and this was rough. Even though they meant no harm, being called a street artist still hurt me a lot.
Boogy Show exhibition, 2024
AS: Did you come to this mediator and tell them?
JP: Yes, and then this person didn’t believe me. We started debating on what was a street artist, what was street art, what was… And I was, yeah, okay. So sometimes you have to accept what people think about your work, and also you have to accept that everybody can’t have the same vision of something. So it hurts, but at the same time, we should be okay that everybody has his or her vision of what they see, of what they feel… Maybe, actually, it’s a good thing that people don’t see everything the same way. If people saw everything the same way, we wouldn’t need so many typefaces.
AS: Do you feel there’s still a stereotype that calligraphy is just for signing invitations?
JP: Of course. Before I joined Commercial Type, it was also a struggle for me to be seen as a type designer because you do calligraphy. It’s upsetting, but it’s normal. I don’t blame anyone for thinking that when you do calligraphy, it’s only for invitations.
Die Fläche book published by Letterform Archive. Cover art by Julien Priez
AS: You’ve mentioned that your work is influenced by Oscar Ogg and Berthold Wolpe. Are there any contemporary designers that influenced you as well?
JP: Yes, Job Wouters influenced me a lot. He is very, very important to me. I discovered his works while I was still studying, and I realized that calligraphy could be used for graphic design and something else, something bigger, not just wedding invitations. Also, I was really into Rene Knip. I think my main influence comes from the Netherlands, like the Experimental Jetset studio, for example. But in type design, I was really influenced by Swiss Typefaces, Klim, OH no Type Co., and Commercial Type.
Book cover designs by Berthold Wolpe
Book jackets by Oscar Ogg, 1942
Well Well Well book with cover art by Job Wouters, 2013
Mural in Breda by Job Wouters, 2020
A tile tableau for Amsterdam metro station by Atelier Rene Knip, 2012
AS: Are there any designers you’d like to collaborate with in the future?
JP: I’ve been very lucky with my collaboration. I would like to do something with Hélène Marian someday.
AS: We will tag her in the Instagram post about the interview!
PVC by Hélène Marian, 2021
AS: So you joined Commercial Type a year ago. How do designers at Commercial Type balance their time between custom work and retail projects?
JP: I have one retail project. Christian and Paul ask me to design something that they want to have in the catalogue. I’ve set a one-year deadline for myself to design a retail typeface, but it can be more; you don’t really have a deadline. As for the custom work, you never know when it will arrive. But whenever it arrives, you have to work quicker. It’s not because of Commercial Type; it’s the clients’ needs that make you work faster. I really like this rhythm because you are working slowly on a very long project. And sometimes it’s actually good to have a distracting thing that you have to develop faster.
Flat Deck with wash capitals by Julien Priez added for Rolling Stone magazine typography
AS: Can you argue about the brief you are given for a retail project?
JP: I never tried. When Christian and Paul asked me to do a wide serif, it felt like a good brief. I said: “Okay, let’s see what will happen if we do this!”
I really like type design exactly for this
AS: The first retail typeface you created with Commercial Type was supposed to be a wide elegant design for luxury branding, and it includes blackletter capitals. Do blackletter capitals stand for elegance or luxury?
JP: My brief was just a wide serif for luxury branding. But the blackletter came from my research. I asked myself what was the origin of wide letters in type design, and it turned out that the first typeface that was really wide, the first one was a blackletter uppercase. So, I thought it would be nice to extract some stuff and mix it with the Roman, and it worked!
So we did it, I think it was good for the typeface to have this in the form like it’s not only wide, you have also some extra in it and the part when, and after I had to think about italics and then the question of how we do the italic of the blackletter was really great.
I remember it was in April, I went to New York to see the team and I had this italic, and Christian and Paul told me, no, no, the italic won’t be like this. And then I went back to the sketchbook doing some calligraphy and they said, yeah, you should do this way, like the point, an experimental uppercase and say, yeah, don’t be shy, you should use this and then, yes, it worked like this.
Place by Julien Priez
Sketches for Place by Julien Priez
AS: A lot of type designers say that in every type design career, there is a stage where a designer has to draw a neutral sans serif. Do you think you’ll manage to escape this stage of your career?
JP: Of course, it’s a matter of discussion, what we call neutral. I don’t know if any typeface can be really neutral at the end. I’m working on some sans at the moment with Paul & Christian. It is very hard. But, for sure, it is a great exercise for a type designer. And I am really happy to do this with Commercial Type.