Jon Melton

Course Leader and Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Graphic Design

Room: Ruskin 222

Telephone: 0845 196 2637
International: +44 1223 363271 ext 2637

Jon Melton's Design Research Website

Graduating from art school in 1984, Jon furthered his professional training in industry as an advertising art director and designer, and throughout his career he has worked alongside or in collaboration with many of the more influential design groups of the 80s and 90s, that includes Trickett and Web, Negas+Negas, and Robinson Lambie-Nairne. Although specialising in Graphic Design he has over the years worked on a diverse range of design projects that includes furniture, interior and architectural feature design. He headed his own design practice working for both regional and London based clients, and was appointed as a visiting lecturer at the Cambridge School of art in 1996, until accepting a (.8) post as course leader for BA (Hons) Graphic Design in 2001. In this time Jon has informed typographic design and industrial practice within the school and helped to establish the course's reputation for creative, innovative and expressive graphic communication.

Jon completed his Masters degree in Typographic Design in 2007, being awarded distinction for his postgraduate research into the categorising and contextualising of display and ornamented types of the 19th century. Through investigative practice he has generated a number of typefaces that explore the potential of historically inspired letterforms within contemporary contexts. Often this work seeks to revive traditional good practice within typography. His font generation and research, is leading towards publication in this largely discounted and ignored period in typographic history. Jon's typefaces and research have been published in the St Bride's Journal - Ultrabold, and he has been a contributor to Computer Arts Projects magazine. More comprehensively his typography and typefaces have been widely on show in exhibitions both at home and abroad including: London, Leipzig, Birmingham, Brighton, Wiemar, and of course Cambridge. At the Plus Expo 'Moving Type' conference he delivered a paper on 'Bifurcated Bodoni - the missing link', which explores evidence for a hypothesis that highly rationalist Didone forms evolved and informed the later ornamental Tuscan Types. He was the instigator and subject curator of the Abram Games exhibition at the Ruskin Gallery, offering a professional 'viewpoint' of one of the 20th century's most important graphic designers. More recently he delivered a paper describing the 19th century context for his latest typeface Classic Soane at the St Bride's typography conference in 2010, and officially launched this typeface within the 'Types for the New Century' exhibition in London in May 2012.

His other research interests lie in 18th and 19th century applied arts, furniture, interiors and architecture - all of which inform his work and research. Jon continues to offer design consultancy to industry which has included working closely with traditional craftsmen within commissions for the reinstatement of period home structural features and applied detailing.