Polymode and XYZ Type
Identity Is Variable

Brian is a partner of Polymode where he focuses on creative direction, design production, writing, and teaching. Born into a family of printers, Johnson is deeply invested in the production of good design without the expense of sacrificing our humanity or environment. He is a member of the Monacan Nation and holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has guest lectured at the School of Visual Arts, Washington University, University of California Santa Barbara, and the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. His recent clients have been Glenn Kaino Studio, the Getty Museum, Studio Museum Harlem, Pulitzer Art Foundation, Phaidon Press, The New Museum, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum where his writing appears in Willi Smith: Street Couture. His most recent publication: Queering the Grid: Reading Codes in Dan Friedman’s Teachings (with Silas Munro) has led him to his current design writing research on Friedman’s 1994, Radical Manifesto, which will be approaching its thirty year anniversary.

IG: brianpolymode

Jesse is a typeface designer and partner at XYZ Type, where he designs typefaces such as the publicly-released Aglet and Study. He specializes in making fonts from scratch, creating lettering for logotypes, and helping people understand how letterforms tick. In his work for clients like Rolling Stone, Dartmouth College, and the New York Public Library, he solves the puzzle of each assignment with systematic thinking and strategic historical references.

Jesse studied graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design. After interning at Font Bureau, he began his career at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, where he helped create the typeface Gotham. He served on AIGA NY’s board of directors and co-founded Type@Cooper, the postgraduate program at Cooper Union where he taught typeface design for four years.

IG: xyz_type

David is a New Haven-based art director, typeface designer, and lecturer at the Yale School of Art.

As a Black designer, David’s work reexamines social cues and history, shedding new light on the past with vigor and perspective. His ongoing personal lettering project on Instagram has cultivated a distinct visual aesthetic that informs his story-driven exhibitions, campaigns, and typeface designs.

David holds MFAs in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art and the University of Memphis, with specializations in letterform design and web design. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Type Directors Club and the programs committee of Poster House.

David’s work has been recognized by AIGA, GDUSA, TDC, Typism, Campaigns & Elections, the College Media Association, and the International Association of Business Communicators, among others.

His client portfolio includes HarperCollins Publishers, American Greetings, Poster House, Birmingham Museum of Art, National Museum of African American Music, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Princeton University Library, Northwestern University Law School, Yale University, and more.

An experienced educator, David has taught at the University of Memphis and Middle Tennessee State University. He was awarded tenure at Austin Peay State University before joining the faculty at the Yale School of Art.

IG: davidjonwalker

killian’s practice oscillates between digital and analog modes for testing publishing projects. This expanded approach considers objects as containers for language that get activated when read, passed, held, and handled. Since 2018, killian’s publishing initiative, nico fontana, has focused on elevating queer and trans artists, writers, and designers. killian has been invited to speak at the Royal College of Art in London, Estonian Academy of Arts, Yale School of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Tongji University in Shanghai, and Kunsthall Stavanger, and has exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, CAVE, Arcadia Missa, Sadie Halie Projects, and the Whitney Museum of American Art for Lorna Mills’ Ways of Something. Select writings of killian’s have been published in After the Bauhaus, Before the Internet: A History of Graphic Design Pedagogy, Amalgam, The Journal of Feminist Scholarship, and others. killian also served as editor for the Walker Art Center’s Soundboard 2: “How Will We Queer Design Education Without Compromise?” killian earned an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art; a diplom from Hochschule Anhalt University of Applied Sciences/Bauhaus Universität; and a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Now based in Richmond, Virginia, killian is an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and directs the MFA program in Graphic Design.