Brian J. Bonislawsky

Founder of the independent digital foundry, Astigmatic One Eye. Known by his nom de caractère as Astigma, Brian Bonislawsky has been developing his typographic skills since his early years in school. The Speedball Textbook, 20th Edition for pen and brush lettering and a subscription to U&lc in his high school years acted as early influences. The art training was mainly fine art based, but Bonislawsky always tried to slip in typographic elements where possible. It was suggested he apply to college for Graphic Design, and he did, to Rhode Island School of Design. However, before his foundation year was completed, Bonislawsky realized the Graphic Design curriculum in the years ahead was far too restrictive for him, so he chose Illustration as his major, while taking all the electives he could in “looser and more interpretive” Graphic Design courses. It was through these courses he studied under Piotr Rypson, Curator of the Centre for Contemporary Art at the Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, as well as his future mentor Chis Vermaas, a graphic designer from Holland. Through these two teachers, Bonislawsky developed a further interest in type and its forms, and a new way of looking at type. Before graduating with a BFA & Certificate in Illustration, he had studied hand cut lettering, dimensional letter construction, working with hot type, and type on the computer. In the years since his graduation, Bonislawsky has established Astigmatic One Eye foundry, an on-line type and graphic design business. As each year passes, Bonislawsky’s portfolio grows larger in scope and variety, in pursuit of his goal: to expand his design repertoire so that he cannot be defined by any single category or style of artist. Bonislawsky is a tireless and prolific designer and his library of typefaces at Astigmatic continues to expand. Big Limbo and Islander, along with previously released Cavalero, Stingwire and Tannarin, represent an every-growing collection of Bonislawsky type designs, with many more to come.