Benjamin Critton

Benjamin Critton is a graphic designer, type designer, art director, and artist based in Los Angeles. Critton received a BA from Hamilton College in 2006 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2011, after which he established Benjamin Critton Art Department, an art and design practice whose client-based collaborations and commissions are supplemented by initiatives in publishing, writing, editing, curation, and pedagogy. Critton’s multifaceted practice, steeped in typographic education and influence, contributes and calls attention to the quotidian, at times unconscious, allure of that which is well-designed. The stratification of commercial design and fine art—and in particular the disparity in how labor is measured and valued in each—are inherent inquiries in Critton’s aesthetically taut approach to idea- and object-making. Aside from and conjunct to his independent work, Critton has also long been a consummate collaborator in a wide range of collective projects; currently, Critton co-runs Norma, a studio that creates objects, furniture, multiples, and interior spaces.