Jiří Toman → Jiří Beran

After nearly four decades with the surname Toman, I am now learning to introduce myself as Jiří Beran. It’s a strange feeling—few things are as deeply personal and yet so public as a name. It’s usually the very first piece of information we share about ourselves, and by its very nature, it reflects our family ties. With few exceptions, we inherit our surname from our parents, and changing it is most commonly associated with marriage—both intensely personal matters, yet visible to everyone.

In my case, however, the change wasn’t due to marriage but was a purely personal decision. Genetically speaking, I am just as much a Toman (from my father’s side) as I am a Beran (from my mother’s). But the environment in which we grow up, and the values we absorb, shape us far more than genetics alone. And in that sense, there is no doubt—I am far more a Beran than a Toman.

Without going too deeply into family history, my grandfather, the painter and graphic artist Alex Beran (1923–2019), has always been a great source of inspiration to me—not just artistically, but also in his pure and unwavering connection to nature, particularly the Jizera and Lusatian Mountains. He also instilled in me a love for jazz and classical music. It is no coincidence, then, that my desk at home now stands in the very spot where Alex Beran sat and created for decades. My grandfather, in turn, had a legacy to build on. His father—my great-grandfather—Jaro Beran (1892–1962) was himself a painter and graphic artist, a prominent Czech ex-librist, and an enthusiastic skier and aviator (though that’s another story). For generations, the Beran family was part of the active Czech minority in Liberec. Life was not easy for them, particularly from the 1930s onwards, in a city where the German-speaking majority held sway. And yet, after the war, it was Jaro Beran, as the first director of the Regional Gallery in Liberec, who saved the works of Czech-German artists like Erwin Müller. This was, in part, thanks to the personal relationships he had with these artists—though he was undoubtedly a Czech patriot, he understood that nationality and native language alone tell you little about a person’s true character. It is no small thing to carry on the tradition of the ‘Berans in Liberec’—the bar has been set high. But I promise, with all sincerity, that I will do my very best.

Alex Beran (left) with his father Jaro Beran. Or my grandfather and great-grandfather.

And of course, I can’t leave out my parents. Thanks to my mother, Kateřina (née Beranová), I remember my childhood as a time of joy, love, and fulfilment. I was surrounded by nature, quality art, and architecture—thanks to visits to her workplace, the now-legendary architectural studio SIAL, I was lucky enough to admire models of Ještěd and other architectural masterpieces from a very young age. Incidentally, it was at SIAL that I first encountered vector graphics in person. Left to entertain myself at the computer as a small child, I used the CalComp digitizer to sketch my imaginative designs for racing cars and other vehicles in AutoCAD (and I can only hope her bosses at the time aren’t reading this now!). Who knows—perhaps that’s where my fascination with precision in lettering and type design first began…

I was Toman for almost forty years. Naturally, that name remains an inseparable part of me, and I associate it with many special moments. In 2009, when we won the visual identity competition for the University of Hradec Králové as university students—a moment that confirmed to us that graphic design was the path we wanted to pursue professionally—we won it as the duo Toman-Kukačka. And those names will always be part of that achievement. More recently, we were fortunate enough to win two more important competitions, this time organised by Czechdesign, both for institutions in my hometown of Liberec (and therefore with strong Beran connections): the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec and the Liberec Botanical Garden. Both projects bear the name Toman beneath them—and that won’t change. However, all my future work will now carry a different name: Jiří Beran. At least now… people will finally stop confusing me with the other Jiří Toman.

The name change also comes with an update to my contact details. From now on, I will be using beran@sudetype.com as my primary work email address, though my current address, toman@sudetype.com, will remain active. On my personal social media accounts—Mastodon, Instagram, and Facebook—you’ll now find me under my new name. But don’t bother looking for me on Twitter/X. I may have changed my surname, but not my principles.