ALL THREE DAYS

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

The Whole Enchilada: We’ve merged the three posts below into one big post, a snapshot of the Custom Letters from 2012. Nearly 1600 images over 47 pages. (see the page numbers at the bottom).

ENJOY

JEN MUSSARI

WESLEY BIRD

ANDREW DERNAVICH

ALEJANDRO GIRALDO

SIMON ALANDER

JACKSON ALVES

CHRISTIAN ANTOLIN

BILJANNA KROLL

DAVE BAILEY

BAIMU STUDIO

BOBBY HAIQALSYAH

ALAN ARIAIL

DARREN BOOTH

DAN CASSARO

BRETT STENSON

MIKE PERRY

JAMES EDMONDSON

JOEL VILAS BOAS

ALEXIS TAIEB / TYRSA

BENJAMIN ESCOBAR

IONUT RADULESCU

BECCA CLASON

STEFAN CHINOF

SERGEY SHAPIRO

BECCA CLASON

ISABEL URBINA

DANIEL GNEIDING

ANDORKA TIMEA

MIKE PERRY

ALEX TROCHUT

ROD SAWATSKY

STEVEN BONNER

DAY 3/3

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

Last day of our Best of 2012 featuring 500+ more images. I’m sure I’ve missed some people, so please email me with omissions and anything else at: lettercult /AT/ gmail.com. I will merge all three days into one post tomorrow.

HERE’S DAY 3

WILL MILLER

MARCOS CALAMATO

CAETANO CALOMINO

FELIX HORNOIU

NATE WILLIAMS

TERESA WOZNIAK

SAWDUST STUDIO

HYLTON WARBURTON

ERIK MARINOVICH

TOBIAS D. ALBERT

MARINA MARJINA

MATEUSZ WITCZAK

GREG PAPAGRIGORIOU

ERIK MARINOVICH

RYAN HAMRICK

KEVIN TONG

DIRTY BANDITS

SHOE MEULMAN

ORIOL MIRÓ

THEOSONE

JAY ROEDER

BORIS PELCER

CHARLES BORGES DE OLIVEIRA

DAY 2/3

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

Welcome to our fourth-annual snapshot of the Year in Custom Letters. We’ve separated it into three days.

Today, Day Two, features another batch of 550 images. The good news — there’s a Day Three, and it will be EDIT: *MONDAY*, with work coming from Erik Marinovich, Shoe Meulman, Luca Barcellona, and many more.

Feel free to email with questions, concerns, errors, omissions, broken links, etc: lettercult /AT/ gmail.com. If you submitted and haven’t seen your work yet, it’s coming on Saturday.

HERE’S DAY TWO

MAXWELL LORD

DAVID M. SMITH

KEN BARBER

GEMMA O’BRIEN

LAURA SERRA

DANA TANAMACHI

JESSICA HISCHE

MARIE ZIEGER

OLGA VASIK

LUKE RITCHIE

ARON JANCSO

BRYAN PATRICK TODD

CHRIS DeLORENZO

name

JOEL BIRCH

AARON CARÁMBULA

JON CONTINO

CORY SAY

DADO QUEIROZ

DAVID A. SMITH

DAVID McLEOD

JOEL FELIX

MARTINA FLOR

JEFF ROGERS

LAURA MESEGUER

LUKE LUCAS

MARCELO SCHULTZ

PETER SUNNA

RICHIE STEWART

TOM LANE

DAY 1/3

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

Welcome to our fourth-annual snapshot of the Year in Custom Letters. It’s separated into two days, and might extend to three.

Today, Day One, features more than 550 images. Big salute to everyone making Custom Letters.

If your work is not featured on Day One, don’t fret, yours is probably coming, but feel free to email — questions, concerns, errors, omissions, broken links, please email brian (bj): lettercult /AT/ gmail.com

If you submitted work early, you’ll probably see it today. If you submitted a bit later, look for it on Day Three. We had more submissions than last year — big thanks to everyone who took the time to do that. About 20 percent of the Best Of will have come from submissions.

Also, be aware that our host (dreamhost) has been having issues, so if the site doesn’t respond…it’s probably because dreamhost is down. Apologies in advance.

HERE’S DAY ONE

JEN MUSSARI

WESLEY BIRD

ANDREW DERNAVICH

ALEJANDRO GIRALDO

SIMON ALANDER

JACKSON ALVES

CHRISTIAN ANTOLIN

BILJANNA KROLL

DAVE BAILEY

BAIMU STUDIO

BOBBY HAIQALSYAH

ALAN ARIAIL

DARREN BOOTH

DAN CASSARO

BRETT STENSON

JAMES EDMONDSON

JOEL VILAS BOAS

ALEXIS TAIEB / TYRSA

BENJAMIN ESCOBAR

IONUT RADULESCU

BECCA CLASON

STEFAN CHINOF

SERGEY SHAPIRO

BECCA CLASON

ISABEL URBINA

DANIEL GNEIDING

ANDORKA TIMEA

ALEX TROCHUT

ROD SAWATSKY

STEVEN BONNER

HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s that time again, time to compile the best Custom Letters from the past year.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

The Custom Letters category includes calligraphy, sign painting, graffiti, stone carving, digital lettering, hand lettering, paper sculpture, and original type design.

The Custom, in this instance, means built from scratch; we ARE NOT looking for customization—a type treatment or 3d treatment—of an existing typeface. Again, no type treatments.

A few other things:

• The deadline to submit is Friday, February 1, midnight Pacific time. We will be publishing our Best Of by March 1. UPDATE: It’s now MARCH 27 for Day One.

• E-MAIL ADDRESS: lettercult [AT] gmail.com. Please include the actual files with 2012 SUBMISSION in the SUBJECT FIELD.

• SUBMISSION FORMAT: .png or .jpg, 600 pixels wide, 72 dpi. We’ll confirm receipt of your submissions. There is no limit to the number of submissions you can make, but please edit yourself, and pick your BEST WORK. Please include a link to your site. And please do not send work completed before 2012, or work from 2013.

• Dribbble 400 px images. These don’t look good stretched to 600 px. Don’t go there.

• Person of the Year. We are going to retire this annual thing, among some other changes. The good news is, I now have some help to make some site changes and we’ll be doing more features and profiles in 2013, in a simpler format.

Thanks!

b

DAY 3/3

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

… If I missed your work, apologies, let me know, asap. More than 700 new images over 24 pages, hopefully it was worth the wait. Errors, bad links, or anything else, please email: lettercult /@/ gmail.com.

Thanks for the patience, and great work in 2011 people!

DAY 2

DAY 1

HERE’S DAY 3

STEFAN CHINOF

MATTHEW TAPIA

BRETT STENSON

DANA TANAMACHI

JAY ROEDER

JUAN RAMON PASTOR (WETE)

ARON JANSCO

REKALISM

ANGELA NAVARRA

SIMON FROUWS

CLAIRE COULLON

MATT LYON

THIRD HALF DESIGN

RAY FENWICK

VIET HUYNH

VANILLA BCN

CORY SAY

SAMUEL TEFCON

LUCAS SHARP

DAN MADSEN

JOEL BIRCH

ALEJANDRO PAUL

UNDERWARE

1984/DIRTY

CAROLYN SEWELL

ALEJANDRO GIRALDO

CHRIS PIASCIK

LUCA BARCELLONA

TOBY & PETE

CLAUDIO GIL

& TYPE

YULIA BROADSKAYA

DAY 2/3

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

• Day 3, hopefully on Monday. Questions, concerns, errors, omissions, broken links, did I miss your work, please email: lettercult /@/ gmail.com. Thanks for the patience, lots more great work to come.

HERE’S DAY 2

ALEX BELTECHI

ERIK MARINOVICH

JESSICA HISCHE

DAVID MCLEOD

SHOE MEULMAN

AUSTIN PETITO

KESARIK

KOSSYO KOKALANOV (SPIT)

NATE WILLIAMS

PAULO EMILIO

LUKE RITCHIE

CRAIG AND KARL

DARREN BOOTH

MICHAEL DORET

KATE PRIOR

JEFF ROGERS

LUKE LUCAS

ANGELA DUNCAN

DAN CASSARO

GREG CHRISTMAN

JAMES T. EDMONDSON

TWO ARMS INC.

BROK

MATT LEHMAN

AARON CARAMBULA

AGNES BARTON-SABO

JORDAN METCALF

KEN BARBER

LUKE LUCAS

KATE PRIOR

ERIK MARINOVICH

ERIK MARINOVICH

MARY KATE MCDEVITT

JESSICA HISCHE

DAY 1/3

Appreciation for the people making Custom Letters. Inspiration for everyone else. A whole lot of great work.

Remember, we’re breaking this up into several days. Day 2 and Day 3 will be next week, days TBD.

• Day 2 will feature work from 2011 Person of the Year Erik Marinovich (see his article below), 2010 POY Shoe Meulman, and 2009 POY Jessica Hische, among dozens of others.

• Day 3 will be anchored by the prolific hand-lettering of Chris Piascik, Carolyn Sewell, and Jay Roeder. Lots more to come.

• If your work is not featured on Day 1, don’t fret, each day is packed with Custom Letters, so yours is probably coming soon, but feel free to email. Questions, concerns, worries, errors, omissions, broken links, did I miss your work, please email brian (bj): lettercult /AT/ gmail.com

Apologies for the delay with this.

Also, again, remembering the late Doyald Young, who died in 2011. Without his inspiration, this site would not exist. RIP Doyald.

HERE’S DAY 1

SERGEY SHAPIRO

MARCELO SCHULTZ

MATS OTTDAL

TOMMASO GUERRA

ROSS MOODY

STEPHEN RAPP

JON CONTINO

JENNIFER BATES

DAVE BAILEY

DAVE FOSTER

STEVEN BONNER

TYPE JOCKEYS

FLORIN FLOREA

MARCELO SCHULTZ

CAETANO CALOMINO

CHARLES BORGES de OLIVEIRA

BRIAN OSBORNE

MARCELO SCHULTZ

ALAN ARIAIL

MARCELO SCHULTZ

JORDAN JELEV

RUTGER PAULUSSE

ANNE ULKU

MARCELO SCHULTZ

RUTGER PAULUSSE

LETTERSTOCK

BRIAN OSBORNE

ISTVAN SZUGYICZKY

ALEX TROCHUT

JON CONTINO

JORDAN JELEV

JULIEN PRIEZ

TOMMASO GUERRA

SIMON ALANDER

CLIM

SIMON ALANDER

CAETANO CALOMINO

SIMON ALANDER

THE OTHER BRICKLAYERS LAUGHED AT HIM. TEASED HIM. And for good reason: Erik Marinovich was the boss’ son. The college kid. And worse — he was the slowest, fussiest mason in town.

“Yes,” Erik remembers. “I was very meticulous. I made sure each brick … was laid perfectly.”

In the world of bricklaying, Erik Marinovich was a misfit.

It was 2005, and after graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Erik couldn’t find an internship in Design, let alone a real job.

Now, he was a mason, his fallback career. He worked hard, laughed at himself for being slow, and earned a decent living. He’d been groomed for this career since he was a kid.

When the other kids were at the beach, Erik and his brother were helping Dad on jobs, mixing mud, or sweeping.

His Dad, Dominik, came to the United States from Croatia in the 1970s, knowing no English. For Dominik, working with his hands was a path to prosperity.

Erik liked working with his hands, too, but now, he had a sense that his creative side was slowly dying. Brick by brick.

One day, after eight months as a mason, Erik decided he couldn’t take it any more. He needed to tell his Dad the truth, that he wasn’t happy as a mason and wanted to take a low-paying, part-time job at a local art gallery. His Dad looked at him, listened, but did not speak.

“He is a man of few words, and even though he did not express his thoughts on me moving on, I knew he was happy for me,” Erik says. “Or at least that is what my Mom told me later.”

At his gallery job, Erik saw the work of David Choe, Dalek, Shepard Fairey, and others, and got inspired again.

“If I never got that part-time job at the gallery, I know for a fact I would have become a bricklayer for life,” Erik says. He was poorer but now happy. And once again, he could call himself a Designer.

***

TWO THOUSAND ELEVEN was Erik Marinovich’s breakout year. He made a transition from mostly doing Design, to mostly doing Lettering. It was, in his words, the year he said, “Oh shit, I can do this for a living?”

He completed work for a bunch of high-profile clients— The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Wired, Gap, Nike, Diageo, Nescafé and Victoria’s Secret — and the blog he started with his friends (Friends of Type) rose in prominence.

Erik and Aaron Carámbula started Friends of Type on Sept. 22, 2009 as a means to stay in touch when Erik moved from Brooklyn. Two more friends, Jason Wong and Dennis Payongayong, also came on board. For Erik, the site was an energizing platform to fully explore Custom Letters.

“I’d stay up every night until 3 a.m., 4 a.m., or an all-nighter,” Erik says, “Just because I have this passion that has been locked down deep inside of me.”

He once spent 18 hours on a single Friends of Type piece. He was officially obsessed. And with his meticulous nature and work ethic, he began to produce amazing work. Up until Friends of Type, Erik’s Lettering output consisted of doodles in a notebook.

“In school, they didn’t even teach the term Lettering to me,” he says. “I came out of college not knowing about Lettering artists.”



Now, he’s known for his Lettering, most of it created with his hands, rather than a computer.

“If I’m on a particular project and I’m spending too much time via the computer, I just feel off,” he says. “It’s a wake-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed feeling. If I’m not working with my hands … something doesn’t feel right.”

***

A few years ago, Erik stumbled on the book Dangerous Curves by the late Doyald Young. He was stunned by the level of detail.

“I was just like, Holy shit,” Erik says. “It was kind of a humbling experience. You start feeling confident and then you see something like this … that book set the bar so high … I knew I’d have to spend years and years, or decades, practicing the craft to be as good as (Doyald) is.”

Reading thru Doyald’s books, “you also realize that you need to pay respect to those before you,” he says. “I’m currently scheming on how to convince my creative heroes (Ed Fella, Tony DiSpigna, Tom Carnase, Michael Manoogian, Michael Doret, Tom Nikosey) to be guest contributors on Friends of Type. If anyone out there knows them, put in a good word for me.”

***

Earlier this year, Erik began to share office space in San Francisco with Jessica Hische. Both have continued with their freelance clients, but together, they are Title Case. (Apparently, Unstoppable Lettering Voltron was already taken.)

“It’s the best of both worlds,” Erik says. “She respects what I bring to the table, and obviously, I respect what she brings to the table. We have this common acknowledgement of mutual respect. Sharing a space with someone like her, it’s like, All right, I gotta do better.”

So far, they’ve hosted several Lettering Workshops and Type-Nerd Get-Togethers. A lot has happened in two years, and Erik humbly takes it all in.

“I feel so fortunate to be given this opportunity,” Erik says. “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t take it for granted.”

His Dad is now back in Croatia, retired.

“He’s so proud of me,” Erik says. “He’s seen me become the person he always thought I could be.”

FOUR THINGS PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU

1. I come from a family of wine makers and have been making it with my Dad, Uncle, brother and cousin for the last 17 years. We source and hand-pick our grapes from vineyards around the Bay Area and make the wine in my parent’s basement the old-fashioned way. Oh, and it’s only made for personal consumption, but I always have a glass ready to pour for new and old friends.

2. I am a dual citizen of the good ol’ USA and the tourist hot spot Croatia.

3. In high school, I was a part of the yearbook committee, and was in charge of designing the cover and any illustrations within it. My senior year I thought it would be funny to include a secret message in a drawing to be used as the opening spread for the freshman class photos. I won’t tell what the secret message was but it was pretty damn funny (to me at least). I was almost certain it was going to be printed until an employee at the printing facility caught it on press. Let’s just say, I almost got kicked out of school for that one.

4. I collect things … a little of too many things. One of my favorite possessions is a book called, Ames’s New Compendium of Practical and Artistic Penmanship. It was given to me by my wife’s uncle who recently passed away. He actually knew what Lettering was and we would have great conversations about penmanship and the craft of making letterforms. On one my last visits to see him, he pulled me aside and gave me that book as a way to always remember him and our conversations.

ERIK’S WORK

LINKS

Erik’s Site
Friends of Type
Title Case
Erik’s Dribbble
Doyald’s Books

HEY FOLKS. Wanted to give you a quick update on the status of our Best of 2011 now that it’s almost April. Yikes.

It’s still coming. It takes ~80 hours to put this together, and I haven’t had any decent chunks of free time the past month and a half.

Just me doing this site, and I’m about halfway done. So clearly it’s ridiculous to have this come out in April … but that’s where it’s at. Next year, I’ll have to figure out a better solution.

So apologies … and stay tuned.