Creative Characters.

In this interview, we’re talking with Mark Simonson about his journey creating his new font, Proxima Sera. Hear from Mark.

Giuseppe & Paco

Chat with font-designing partners Giuseppe Salerno, 43, and Paco Gonzalez, 46, of Resistenza (meaning: resistance) Type Foundry, based in Torino, Italy, and Valencia, Spain, and get a lesson in lettering history. The pair are dedicated to producing typefaces via an artisanal process — creating hand lettering through calligraphy — before digitizing the fonts for the contemporary market. Read more

Santi Rey

In 2014, the Spanish typeface designer Santi Rey, now 35, left his hometown of Madrid for London. Despite speaking little English at the time, he was determined to explore new job opportunities and expand his horizons. It was during this time that Santi discovered his passion for type and branding design, as well as his love for crafting compelling origin stories for his fonts. Read more

Julien Fincker

As he exits his 30’s, graphic and type designer Julien Fincker, of Stuttgart, Germany, is celebrating the self-expression he’s found through his eponymous foundry for woodworking, printmaking, and most important, font creation. Read more

Daniel Pelavin - Pelavin Fonts

Chat with illustrator/typographer Danny Pelavin, and you’ll discover that he’s grateful for having creatively come of age in the 1970s, during the halcyon days of design studios in Detroit; that he still does all his lettering by hand; and that he’s not shy about sharing his truths. Read more

Fitriyawan Runsell - Runsell Type

Type and graphic designer Fitriyawan Runsell, founder of Runsell Studios, launched his Magelang City, Indonesia-based business in 2016, when he was just 24. Since then, he’s created 300+ fonts in multiple languages, ranging from Arabic to English. Recently, his foundry expanded by introducing Logofonts, a new division producing brand logos for small-to-mid-sized companies. Read more

Aldy Sidik - Olivetype

If every foundry has a vibe, then Olivetype’s is young, urban, and funky, with a liking for graffiti-like fonts. Founded in 2019 by Aldy Sidik and Nurul Hidayani, a husband-and-wife team driven by what Sidik calls “a shared passion for typography,” Olivetype is based in West Java, Indonesia, on an island surrounded by volcanos, some of them active. Read more

Dwi Ahidian - Lemonthe

Graphic designer and font creator Dwi Ahidian, the founder of Lemonthe Studio, found himself on a newly creative path just five years after his 2015 graduation from Politeknik Piksi Ganesha, a university in Bandung, the capital city of Indonesia’s West Java province, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and where he also lives and works. Read more

XYZ Type

Font designers Ben Kiel and Jesse Ragan, co-owners of XYZ Type, neither build garden fountains nor pour metal (two popular career misconceptions that the pair encounter). Instead, they’re quippy 40-somethings who launched their own shop after meeting and singing karaoke together at TypeCon NYC in 2005. Read more

Richard Lipton

Richard Lipton has been drawing and designing letterforms for an impressive five decades, blending experience in sign painting, calligraphy and type design in a career that’s included time at Bitstream, Adobe, Font Bureau and as a founding partner at Type Network. Read more

Fachrizal Yusuf — Allouse Studio

Fachrizal Yusuf took the leap from freelance designer to studio founder, along with two childhood friends in a small city in Indonesia. Completely self-taught, with the help of design books and tutorial videos online, Yusuf’s studio Allouse produces a wide range of playful, hand-lettered fonts. Read more

Diego Aravena — W Type Foundry

Call him a dreamer. Diego Aravena, 36, currently lives in Britain and studies at the University of Reading, where he’s earning a master’s degree in font design.   Read more

Toshi Omagari — Tabular Type Foundry.

Japanese typographer, Toshi Omagari, 37, enjoys using the research skills he honed in adulthood to become an expert at what he loved growing up in 1990’s Fukuoka, Japan: video arcade games.   Read more

Mario De Libero & Manuel Alvaro — Italiantype Foundry.

What’s in a revival? Respect, for starters, but also the confidence to believe that there’s room to improve on a classic. That’s the case for Italiantype designers Mario De Libero, 23, and Manuel Alvaro, 31.   Read more

Joana Correia — Nova Type Foundry.

Born in Porto, Portugal, an ancient seaside city where she was classically trained as an architect before entering the field of type design, Joana Correia has enjoyed a 20-year career shaped by her twin drives to learn from the old while creating something new.  Read more

Cahya Sofyan — Studio Sun.

Cahya Sofyan’s inspiration knows no bounds. With a lineup of typefaces straight out of the Summer of Love by way of the Pony Express, Sofyan’s display fonts practically vibrate off the screen, while his quieter sans serifs hum with understated grace.  Read more

Connary Fagen.

Font designer Connary Fagen, 36, brings an organic perspective to everything he creates. Raised in Colorado, he describes his typefaces as if they grew from the western ground — alongside the wheat fields and mountains surrounding his one-man foundry.  Read more

This is our first episode, and our guest is James Sommerville, who has worked at several notable brands including The Coca-Cola Company. Today, he is the co-founder of KNOWN_UNKNOWN and is working to transform the future of creative talent. You can hear this pod cast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever quality podcasts can be found.

This week, we’re talking  with Laura Worthington of Bonney Lake, WA, about her journey and insights as a type designer. Hear from Laura.

This week, we’re talking with Elena Genova, a type designer based in Edinburgh, UK, about her journey and insights from her 20-plus-year career in type design. Hear from Elena

This week, we’re talking  with Kimmy Kirkwood, a type designer based in Seattle, Washington, about her journey and insights as a type designer. Hear from Kimmy

This week, we’re talking  with Joana Correia of Portugal about her journey and insights as a type designer.  Hear from Joana

This week, we’re talking with Jessica McCarty about her journey as a type designer and her insights for new designers. Hear from Jessica.

This week, we’re talking with Nicky Laatz about her journey as a type designer and her insights for new designers. Hear from Nicky