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Typographer at the cutting edge
The importance of typography, and design more generally, is now widely accepted. It was the virtue of the typographer and teacher Paul Stiff, who has died aged 61, to ask unsettling questions, such as does it work?
In his first article, Design for Reading, published in Graphics World in 1988, Paul set out his case. Information design (using design to display complex information effectively), should, he wrote: "First, put the user at the centre. Second, find out if there are sharper ways of telling if typographic design works well than simply asking the designer." He pointed out how information design can be cross-cultural and international in its scope, and so may be applied to literacy programmes in Africa just as well as to public transport schemes in northern capital cities.
Paul came from a working-class background in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, and attended the local grammar school. In 1963 his family went, as "£10 poms", to Western Australia, though they returned after two years, first to Middlesbrough, then to Coventry, where Paul's political initiation came through the leftwing May Day Manifesto group. He then did a year (1968-69) of sociology at Essex University, dropping out before the summer exams. His journey into typography began in Colchester, Essex, where he met the printer Desmond Jeffery at a political event.
In 1970 Paul started a course at the London College of Printing, where Jeffery was teaching. During that year he met his partner, Jan Stebbing, then a postgraduate student at Essex University and later a teacher, and in 1971 they left London to work as volunteers for Interplay, a community arts project and part of the alternative community then flourishing in Leeds.
In 1974 Paul became a student at the department of typography at Reading University, and, already adept at drawing letters and organising text on a page, learned to bed his practical skills in historical and theoretical dimensions. Graduating in 1978, he got a job with the publishers Routledge and Kegan, where – eternally awkward – he insisted that he work equally as editor and designer.
In 1980 he returned as a lecturer to the department of typography at Reading, where he remained until his death. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 1989, reader in 1993 and professor in 2010. In 2004 he established an MA course in information design there. In 1996 he was involved in the department's launch of a series called Typography Papers, focusing on how design was implemented. His discussions wove together technical and labour history with empirical observation and illustration. The last issue of Typography Papers that he edited, in 2009, opened with a scorching, 60-page essay by Paul, surveying the field.
In 1986 Paul joined Information Design Journal as co-editor, with its founder, Robert Waller, becoming sole editor from 1990 to 2000. He and Jan had split up in 1981, and in 1987 he met Alison Black, who was doing postdoctoral research in typography at Reading. In 1990 her book Typefaces for Desktop Publishing: a User Guide, very much a product of their partnership, was published. They separated in 2001.
In 2006 Paul was diagnosed with throat cancer, which returned despite surgery. A wonderful cook and gardener, he was a great traveller and topographical enthusiast. He is survived by his brothers, Nigel and Michael; two sons, Liam and Gabriel, by Jan; a daughter, Eleanor, by Alison; and two grandchildren, Rosie and Maebh.
• Paul Stiff, typographer and teacher, born 1 August 1949; died 12 February 2011
