Samoan-New Zealand typographer Joseph Churchwarda is profiled by The Spinoff The Samoan-New Zealand typographer behind the beloved Bugonia font.
His typeface has recently been featured in the new Yorgos Lanthimos film Bugonia. The work of Churchward was also seen on the cover of Hana Pera Aoake’s book A bathful of kawakawa and hot water. His iconic Churchward Māori typeface was highlighted in this article, amongst other important works.
Portrait by Tahnia Roberts, 2010.
“All of Churchward’s fonts were designed by hand (his business cards read “hand lettering is superior” and he rejected computers). He created 690 typefaces throughout his life, which took him from Samoa to Aotearoa, and back again several times. Among his many alphabets, which each took hundreds of hours, were designs named after his wife, Tua, and daughters.
The 2000s and 2010s saw a flurry of attention and recognition. There was the Te Papa exhibition “Letter Man: Joseph Churchward’s world of type” in 2008, after which a collection of his work was placed in the museum’s Pacific Cultures Collection. He was the subject of a 2009 book by David Bennewith, and the following year Churchward made the Queen’s Honours list for services to typography, which acknowledged his renown as “the world’s most prolific typeface designer”. After his death in 2013, Wellington’s City Gallery held an exhibition, “Churchward Samoa”, in 2014.”
“A curvaceous font that incorporates koru motifs, it was designed amidst the politics of the 1980s. One of Churchward’s most familiar designs, it can be seen on the cover of Salient magazine and Hana Pera Aoake’s 2020 book A bathful of kawakawa and hot water, who also co-edited the publication He Kotahitanga, which features the font throughout.”
