Rediscovering my love of letters

Recently I’ve fallen in love with letters again. In high school I got way into letters: fonts, lettering, calligraphy, the whole works. For a short time after college I even got paid for it, doing wedding invitations. But my interest waned as there were no other weirdos like me, and I seemed to be in a creative rut playing with the standard shapes and doodling in my journals.

That changed earlier this year when I discovered several online letter-loving communities and a whole new world of art and creativity. Basically, “the kids” are rediscovering letters too and doing amazing über-creative work. Well, it’s not just kids: old-timer calligraphers like me are getting new inspiration from the forms of graffiti and street art.

(I can’t help but wonder if the immanent end of handwriting is a cause. Now that hand writing is no longer a needed skill, we can step back and see it as a beautiful art?)

Tonight I’m giving a talk about my rediscovered passion at Ignite SF, and will direct people to this post to find out more about letters.

The Reddit communities where I particitpate:

Artists of note

I also teach an occasional class at Noisebridge in San Francisco called Letter Lovers, which is part class and part just a hangout for likeminded people to geek out with letters. 🙂  Signup on the mailing list to be notified about classes.

You can follow my latest work on Instagram or Tumblr.