[2][3] He operates the company Frere-Jones Type and teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program.

[14][15] He joined the Yale School of Art faculty in 1996, and teaches type design there alongside Matthew Carter and Nina Stössinger.

[22][23][24][12] In 2006, Frere-Jones received the Gerrit Noordzij Prize, an award given by the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) to honor innovations in type design.

[27] Several of Frere-Jones' designs in the 1990s, notably Reactor, were highly expressive in the "grunge typography" style of the period; some were created for Neville Brody.

[36][37]Many of Frere-Jones' typefaces are extremely large families designed for professional users, for instance Mallory which as of 2019 had 110 styles.

[38] Organisations that commissioned work from Frere-Jones have included GQ magazine, the Whitney Museum,[34] The Wall Street Journal,[39] Martha Stewart Living[40] and the Essex Market.