Art (as) Therapy
I gave a talk at the AIGA national conference this year in Las Vegas, and with all short form talks I feel compelled to write out my thoughts in advance in the form of an essay (and then improvise quite a bit when I’m on stage). Here’s a transcript of the talk (minus my ice breaker jokes) for…
Productivity Quest: Ultra-Schedule
One of the best parts about being a freelancer (or “Running a One-Person Studio” as I prefer to say) is having a flexible schedule. Yes, client deadlines impose some structure to your calendar, but for the most part (if you’re willing to work strange hours) work and life can blend smoothly…
Productivity Quest: Email
E mail is one of those things that people endlessly bitch about. Remember when it was fun to get emails? When that “you’ve got mail” chime would sound and fill you with warm and fuzzy feelings because someone, somewhere, took time out of their day to write you a nice note or send you a chain…
Upping Your Type Game
Note: This text was created as a talk for An Event Apart in San Diego. It was presented Tuesday, May 21st 2013. Many thanks to Stephen Coles for his advising and light editing. While the full slide deck is not shown below, about a quarter of the original slides are used as editorial illustrations.…
About
Here’s a brief history of who I am, what I do, and why we should be friends: I grew up in Pennsylvania, raised by two non-creatives that decided it would be OK to let their little girl pursue a seemingly impractical career. I ended up attending a wonderful art school thanks to an amazing high…
Non-Creepy Networking: Party Etiquette
Note: This is Part 1 in a series of articles about non-creepy networking. There’s just too much to say to get it all out in one article. <p class="first"><span class="dropcap">N</span><span class="run-in">etworking. What an awful word.</span> It's one of those things…
Do I keep my crappy job?
Note: What follows is email correspondence between myself and a designer seeking advice. Names have been anonymousized, and I’ve subtracted praise since it would be icky of me to just post praisey emails. Dear Ms. Hische, My name is Person, I’m 21 and I’m going to be graduating from college…
How did you build your online presence?
My online communities have always started as a reflection of my “real life” communities. I joined Twitter in 2008 and more than half of the people I followed and interacted with at that time were people I knew in person and saw frequently—studiomates and work friends made through design…
Inspiration vs. Imitation
Every now and then I get a really lovely email from an aspiring letterer that is about to publish a passion project of his or her own. They tell me my work was an inspiration and that they can't wait to share their creation with the world. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside for a moment...until I…
Do you ever feel overwhelmed?
Note: What follows is email correspondence between myself and a designer seeking advice. Names have been anonymousized, and I’ve subtracted praise since it would be icky of me to just post praisey emails. Hi Jessica, I recently graduated from a graphic and package design program (whoop!) and…
How did you become a letterer?
When I was in college, I was too broke to buy decent fonts. I knew that I could either approach every project with my limited number of typefaces, spend days digging through terrible free font websites to find anything even remotely acceptable, or “draw my own fonts” (I say this in quotes…
The Dark Art of Pricing
I know many of you went to art school and I’m assuming most of the people reading this article are designers, illustrators or others working within the world of what we reluctantly call “communication art”. When we graduated from art school, a career was promised to us. We wouldn’t spend…
Is my school holding me back?
Note: What follows is email correspondence between myself and a designer seeking advice. Names have been anonymousized, and I’ve subtracted praise since it would be icky of me to just post praisey emails. Dear Jessica, You mention how critical the curriculum and environment at Temple was in…
What's your lettering process like?
All of my work begins with a sketch. I used to sketch entirely by pencil (and still do from time to time!) but lately I’ve been sketching in ProCreate on an iPad Pro. I still treat it like a pencil and paper when I’m starting out—working in all black and white and using the “6B pencil”…
On Internships
As I’ve watched my flowchart get reposted around the internet a bit, there is a topic that is always brought up in comments that I didn’t address on the chart itself: internships. I purposefully avoided talking about them on the chart, just as I avoided diving into great detail about non-profit…
Fighting Creative Burnout
If you are a freelance designer / illustrator / general creative person, and have established momentum in your career that has lasted a decade or more, one of the things you will be asked time and time again is how you stay interested and inspired in the work you are doing. There are a lot of ways…
What do you do when you're not working?
I have three children, and spending time with them occupies most if not all of my non-work time. I tend to carve out free time for myself during the work week (when I have childcare) rather than on the weekend. During these occasional moments of freedom, I picnic at Lake Merritt, visit my favorite…
Type Rugs
As some of you may know, I purchased a Cintiq tablet a few weeks ago and have been having a blast with it. I’m not here to write a big consumer review, but I can say that it has changed my process quite a bit. I wasn’t a Wacom user prior to purchasing the Cintiq (all of my vector…
Getting Freelance Work
Dear Designer McDesignperson,I am a current senior majoring in design/illustration. I was wondering what I can do to promote myself and get freelance work?....[five paragraphs of life story]...any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!" I am asked this question constantly (as are…
ACMA
This is a cover and a series of ornaments that I created for the Academy of Country Music Awards program book. I’ve included my sketches for this project, since I (very briefly) owned a Cintiq (one of those Wacom screens you can draw on) and they look quite different than my usual pencil…
Academy Screenwriting Posters
The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is an international screenwriting competition established to identify and encourage talented new screenwriters. Thousands of scripts are submitted and only five winners are chosen. I was asked to create artwork for each of the five winners, which…
How do I critique a sensitive person?
Hello, I’m hoping you have thoughts to share on coping with a much less experienced designer who wants me to just say “That looks great, sweetie!" and give him a cookie. But my job is to art direct, sharing the benefit of my experience with him. If the type is ugly and impossible to read,…
Mom, This is How Twitter Works
So I wasn't trying to make some sort of political statement about women in technology when I made this really fun and really useful website—it actually was originally intended for my mom, the most tech-savvy person I know over 50. While twitter seems a very simple service, it’s actually quite…
NPR Calendar
I was so excited to be asked to be a part of the 2013 NPR calendar, and even more excited when I found out my artwork was to be used on the cover! Here’s a little bit about my piece: “As someone that consumes a massive amount of "guilty-pleasure" media, NPR is one of very few sources of…
How did you build your “personal brand?”
When I graduated college, everyone wanted to set up a studio under a different name than their own. They wanted to be treated as an agency rather than an individual. This is really useful if the kind of clients you want to attract are the kind that want an agency behind the work, but I really…
How do you deal with rip-off-ers?
Note: What follows is email correspondence between myself and a designer seeking advice. Names have been anonymousized, and I’ve subtracted praise since it would be icky of me to just post praisey emails. Hi Jessica, I've been lucky enough to land imitators of my work in the last few months, some…
I love love.
I get a good amount of emails requesting quotes for personal work like tattoos and wedding invitations, and unfortunately for the most part I can’t take them on (I actually have a “blood relatives only” policy for tattoo design). When Stuart Lang wrote me to ask if I’d help him propose to…
Type Rug!
I am a perpetual decorator, and while I totally love Erik’s and my studio, I’m always looking for little ways to improve it. I had been thinking about how good a rug would be for the space for a while, but we already have so many rectangular objects in the room I thought that if we did get…
You’re My Pinspiration
I was super pumped when Pinterest co-founder Evan asked me if I wanted to meet up to talk about working together in some way or another. He had a fun idea to do prints and cards and to make the price really reasonable so that they'd be accessible to all of their awesome users, not just the gold…
IC & Friends
When Don Clark from Invisible Creature reached out to see if I wanted to participate in their ongoing series IC & Friends, I of course jumped at the chance. Each artist is asked to do their own interpretation of the Invisible Creature mummy on a shirt and the sky is nearly the limit in terms of…
Neiman Marcus Holiday 2022 Cookie Jar
Neiman Marcus commissioned me to create a massive suite of designs for their 2022 Holiday campaign. The work included the creation of a custom alphabet, character designs and spot illustrations, several custom lettering pieces, and a design system for culinary gift packaging. This piece is one of…
Where did you go to school and why did you go there?
I have a BFA in Graphic Design from Tyler school of Art, Temple University, in Philadelphia. I mostly went to Tyler because it was a good school that I could afford and they accepted me with a pretty unimpressive portfolio of student work—just the standard self portraits, wonky ceramics, and…
Talent Search
Plan Sponsor Magazine is a wonderful publication if only for one reason: SooJin Buzelli. As creative director at its parent company Asset International, she has helped make the magazine essentially a showcase for illustration talent. This was one of the more difficult editorial jobs I worked on…
Viney Alphabet
I created this fun viney alphabet for a letterpress print, which I printed myself and are available in my store. I also decided to make it into a repeat pattern for fun, which has been my twitter background for some time.
Buttermilk Font
Buttermilk is a font I designed in 2009 which is available for purchase in my store, or at Veer and MyFonts. It was my very first typeface, so it definitely has its quirks, and it’s been use on everything from Holiday Barbie & Kellogg’s Special K packaging to ads for The Museum of Sex and…
Politics at the Dinner Table
The Washington Post magazine ran a special feature on the one-year anniversary of the election, asking artists and contributors to propose one specific idea to help fix American civic life. For my idea, I wanted to address how it's often seen as taboo to talk politics with family at the dinner…
The Peanut Gallery
Google contacted me to be a part of a fun secret project that they were putting together to help showcase their Speech API in the most recent Chrome update. They would build a site that allowed you to voice the words in a silent movie, and the Speech API would insert them as dialogue cards…
Code Mode Light
So often I felt like I needed a sign above my head when knee deep in HTML, CSS, Jquery, email, writing—all the activities that require undivided attention—so that my studio mates would know that whatever questions they asked me where going in one ear and out the other. Grant from Fair Goods…
Chill Vibes
For a special music-focused edition of Pop-Up Magazine (a live "magazine" featuring talks and performances), I and several other artists were asked to make art for special edition prints. The size was influenced by an LP and just had to conceptually tie in to our feelings about music in California.…
New 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. This is one of my early experiments—I drew the word "new" in a style that I knew would translate well to a soft 3D style. I…
The Messy Middle
Scott Belsky reached out to create custom limited edition prints based on headlines in his book The Messy Middle. He and his publisher Penguin were organizing a sweepstakes in which readers could win a print or set of prints. We worked together to design the prints and then I hand printed them…
This Podcast Will Kill You
I haven’t made much fan art in my life because I’m generally busy enough with client work and personal projects, but I am such a fan of this podcast I felt moved to make something for it. If you love learning about human biology, diseases, etc, I highly recommend it! The two ladies who run the…
You Are Enough
One day I caught my daughter staring at her face in the mirror. I asked her what she was thinking about and she told me she wished she had a different and more beautiful face. I nearly broke down and cried on the spot. She doesn’t watch shows that are all about superficial beauty. She isn’t…
How important is style?
To a letterer or illustrator, style is incredibly important. When you are hired as an illustrator, you’re hired to work in a style that your portfolio proves you excel at. The person that hires you is most often not the end client—you’re hired by an agency or a publisher that is working for a…
What inspired you to become a designer?
When I was in college I took a lot of electives in different art areas, always thinking I would end up majoring in that discipline. I loved glass, I loved wood-working, I loved painting and drawing; then I took a design class. I really loved the idea of having a problem to solve, of having limits…
How do you come up with font names?
You kind of can’t go wrong if you name typefaces after wine, women, or food. I tend to name my typefaces after things that they remind me of. Ultimately though, you want to give it a name that showcases some of your favorite characters. Buttermilk got it’s name because it felt like a creamy…
Side Projects
Aside from client work, I’ve created and continue to run a few fun side projects. Daily Drop Cap, the first, was pure eye candy and helped jump start my lettering career. Since then I’ve used side projects to exercise parts of my brain that go unused during client time, and have had a blast…
I am not a web designer.
Note: This is a recently edited article I originally wrote in 2010. Since writing it, I’ve accumulated a heck of a lot of HTML and CSS skillz (I made this here website!), but I still do not offer my web design or front-end dev services to clients. There will be an article to follow specifically…
Press Page
Here you’ll find everything you’ll need to get that blog post or magazine article rolling. Because there’s already oodles of information about me online—on this site and elsewhere—I advise against contacting me for Q&A style interviews. Plus they’re kind of lazy. Writers are…
Daily Drop Cap
In September of 2009, I started a little project that ended up having a dramatic impact on my career. For 12 alphabets, I illustrated a letter per day and posted them online for others’ viewing pleasure. At the peak of the project, the site was receiving more than 100,000 visitors per month. The…
OnStar
This piece accompanied an advertorial article for OnStar (subject obvious). My goal was to keep the lettering monochromatic so it could be placed over a dark photographic background and to give it a vintage holiday card feeling.
30 Covers in 30 Days
For National Novel Writing Month I was asked to contribute a cover for one of the selected featured pieces. Various designers are asked to participate and each are assigned a book to create a cover for. My book was about a struggling photographer that inherits her Aunt’s fortune under the…
In Radiolab We Trust
Jez Burrows started a wonderful little initiative to help support Radiolab, which is an amazing podcast. I was happy to be a part of it! My contribution references my favorite episode, which is about Parasites. I decided to make a pattern of the bird just for fun.
Weekend Art Workshop
Tyler School of Art, my alma mater, commissioned me to create this poster for their continuing education program's Weekend Art Workshops. This was one of the first pieces I created after graduating college, and is one of the very first in which I illustrated in what has now become my main…
You’ve Got the Spirit
I was featured in Uppercase Magazine’s second issue and was asked to create a hand-lettered spread, anything I wanted. I chose this phrase, which was in a Destroyer song I had in my head at the time (and is also a lyric from a Joy Division song). I then translated the design into a vertical…
AAFUtah
Join AAFUtah as I walk through my process, share stories from projects like my work on Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, and give plenty of helpful tips on how to better your analog and vector skills. This talk takes place at 11:30am at Publik House, 975 S West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT. Tickets on…
FITC Amsterdam
Now in its 12th year, FITC returns to Amsterdam to host their groundbreaking design and tech event on the future of innovation, design and all the cool shit in between. FITC Amsterdam features the world’s most innovative, technical and creative talks that will inspire you to pursue your dreams…
Target Tag Lines
Target contacted both myself and Erik Marinovich to letter tag lines that would be used in an internal presentation to some important Target partners. We had a lot of fun “collaborating” (we split up the phrases between the two of us and had to go back and forth to make sure we weren’t being…
Dandy Gilver
Jacket designs for a series of murder mystery books. I really love designing books where the full jacket is taken into consideration. Often, as a letterer, I'm brought in to do a component on a cover but not the full design. I thought this was a fun and whimsical way to really activate the whole…
Snowflake Font
Available through my store, through myfonts and veer. Snowflake is a charming typeface based on cut paper snowflakes. Along with a full alphabet, numbers, accent characters, and punctuation, it also includes snowflake ornaments for borders or patterns! It's similar to crochet work and papel picado,…
World’s Strongest Man
Design for a very long headline for Men’s Journal utilizing several fonts as well as some of my own lettering.
Jonathan Gold’s Best Restaurants 2016
I created the opening artwork for the LA Times's annual dining guide in 2016, curated by their esteemed restaurant critic Jonathan Gold. I presented three concepts and the winner was inspired by the embroidery on a chef's jacket. We toyed with the idea of commissioning and photographing a custom…
Goode Co.
Principle reached out to me to help in their branding update of the renowned Houston restaurant chain Goode Co. (featured on Good Morning America, Food Network, BBC, etc.). It started as a very popular BBQ place and expanded to include 7 restaurants—Principle was tasked with reigning in the…
Beck: Song Reader
I walked into Atlas Café in San Francisco one afternoon to have a quick solo lunch and ran into Jordan and Walter from McSweeney’s who were scheming about what to do for the cover of Beck’s new “album” (a book of sheet music). By the end of lunch were doodling together and they signed me…
Church of the Dog
Deep in Oregon farm country, Edith and Earl McRae are looking down the barrel of their fiftieth anniversary with none of the joy such a milestone should hold. Instead, they are stuck in a past that holds them to heartbreak and tragedy. Enter the mysterious and ever-so-slightly magical Mara…
Penguin Drop Caps
Penguin Drop Caps is a series of twenty-six collectible hardcover editions of fine works of literature, each featuring on its cover a specially commissioned illustrated letter of the alphabet by yours truly! A collaboration between myself and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, whose series design…
Sprint
The team at Google Ventures hired me to create a unique design for their upcoming book about Design Sprints, which help companies test ideas quickly, promising that within five days you can move from idea to prototype to decision. Jake and his team (along with the publisher) had worked on some…
100 Things We Learned From Mom
I’m not big on personal commissions but of course love doing work for close friends and especially family. When my Mother-in-Law turned 70, her three boys (all of whom are designers / design adjacent) put together a little book of insights and memories she had given them throughout the years. My…
Gratitude Journal Cover & Lettering
After the release of my two children’s books Tomorrow I’ll be Brave and Tomorrow I’ll be Kind, we wanted to bring the artwork and sentiments to a new audience. I am a “bad journaler” and have abandoned many a barely-started diary over the course of my life, but when I discovered gratitude…
Gratitude Journal Spot Illustrations
After the release of my two children’s books Tomorrow I’ll be Brave and Tomorrow I’ll be Kind, we wanted to bring the artwork and sentiments to a new audience. I am a “bad journaler” and have abandoned many a barely-started diary over the course of my life, but when I discovered gratitude…
Tim & Gwenny
When my friend Elliott contacted me to help he and a few pals create a gift for our mutual friend Tim’s wedding, I of course said yes! I made a one-off letterpress print for the occasion and printed it myself at The Arm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Good Stuff 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. This piece of lettering was originally created to cut on my laser cutter for a box inlay (just for fun!) but I love the…
Party Nails 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. I drew this logo for my friend Taylor Watson’s nail art pop-up way back when and was excited to see it come alive in the…
Tight 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. This was a for-fun piece that I created initially as a letterpress print (which is available in my shop!) but that I have had…
Give Back
This was a self-initiated piece the week of Juneteenth in 2020. I posted it to instagram with this caption: “Made this yesterday while I contemplated what I could do next to help make the design community more inclusive. Lots of ideas rolling around, which are more possible to execute these days…
40 Days of Dating
My friends Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman decided to create an experiment together—they would date each other for forty days and journal about it publicly so we could all follow along with their journey. They asked friends in the design community to contribute artwork to the site, which was…
Malcolm X Elementary Shirt 2022
Yes, I am one of those moms. Our kids’ public elementary school in Berkeley ran a design contest for their annual t-shirt fundraiser and I just had to enter! I was actually quite nervous about whether or not my design would be picked based on the wide variety of styles that had won in the past.…
Writer Shirts
My good friend Pete commissioned me to create two shirt designs for an event that Writer was putting on. They wanted each in a very distinct writing style / voice and both needed to incorporate the Writer logo in a small and unassuming way. My old San Francisco studio that I shared with Erik…
CAA Friday Night Party
Thao Nguyen contacted me about designing the invite to CAA’s Friday Night Party after being sent my way by Brian Rea (thanks Brian!). They wanted something deco / flapper inspired as the party would have a bit of this theme thanks to the release of The Great Gatsby that year. I was also able to…
ICON
The Illustration Conference [ICON] is a grass-roots, professional organization established in 1997 to serve the illustration community and promote the use of illustration in all media, provide a platform for illustrators and image-makers to address issues from a tight knit community and develop new…
Contact Me
Thanks for thinking about me for your project, partnership, conference, etc! I've put together this slightly excessive contact page to make sure your inquery goes to the right place and doesn't get accidentally buried in my very messy inbox.
Writing
Rather than keep up a traditional blog, this page serves as a home for writing and as a repository for answers to frequently asked questions about me and my work. For news updates, please follow me on twitter or subscribe for email updates. Please feel free to email comments or corrections.
Thoughts
Rather than keep up a traditional blog, this page serves as a home for writing and as a repository for answers to frequently asked questions about me and my work. For news updates, please follow me on twitter or subscribe for email updates. Please feel free to email comments or corrections.
FAQ
Rather than keep up a traditional blog, this page serves as a home for writing and as a repository for answers to frequently asked questions about me and my work. For news updates, please follow me on twitter or subscribe for email updates. Please feel free to email comments or corrections.
Speaking
As you can probably tell from my thoughts and resources pages, I love to share what knowledge I have to whomever will listen. I’ve had the honor of sharing the stage with the likes of Michael Bierut, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, James Victore, and Erik Spiekermann at design, web, type, and…
Jess & Russ
I can’t say I was a normal girl, fantasizing about my wedding day from the time I could walk, but when Russ proposed I was ecstatic. A few days later the congratulations started pouring in from friends and stranger-friends along with one enthusiastic and intimidating statement: “Your wedding…
Title Case
Title Case is the collaborative studio of myself and Erik Marinovich in San Francisco. Together, we host workshops and events, teaching others about lettering and type and doing our part to bring the creative community of San Francisco together. To learn more about events at our space or if…
Penguins!
Cover, full page interior, and half page illustrations of many many happy penguins. Drawing penguins in bathing suits was pretty awesome, but the biggest challenge was making type out of ice! I feel like I could make it with my eyes closed now.
Present Company
A full page illustration for the cover of the holiday edition of the Style section. This was the start of my career as a ribbon typographer.
Sandy & Baby Names
This was an illustration for an interesting article about how baby naming trends take shape. The article focussed on how names that start with the same letter or sound similar end up becoming popular simultaneously. The most fun part about his assignment though is how it was completed—Josh…
California Pizza Kitchen
Lettering for ads for California Pizza Kitchen. The lettering was placed on a photo where a missing slice of pizza should be. I love these, and who doesn’t love pizza?
ICON Poster
When John Hendrix, an illustrator I completely admire (and a person I really like!) contacted me about being a part of ICON's new promotional materials I was pleased as punch. As a member of the illustration community, nothing could be more thrilling than helping promote their leading conference in…
Maryland SPCA Campaign
Logo and art for a fund-raising campaign for the Maryland SPCA. This was a fun project that involved a ton of hand-lettering and actually inspired me to adopt two kitties of my very own.
Special K
Honey lettering for a Special K ad which was later made to look like three-dimensional honey. The “final” shown at the top is my own faked version and does not reflect the 3-dimensional post production work that followed.
Tyler Open Houses
Tyler School of Art, my alma mater, commissioned me to create these two posters to advertise their Fall and Spring open houses.
Aesop’s Fables
This is a children's book I developed while in school at Tyler School of Art. Each fable is illustrated along with the moral so your child doesn't even have to think about how the story applies to their life, it's right there in front of you. Almost every word over four letters long is defined in…
Grantland Logotype
While I’m not really a sports enthusiast (unlike my brother, to whom sports are one of the essential elements of life, perhaps more important than water or shelter), I was still excited when McSweeney’s asked me to help design the logotype for a fancier hardbound quarterly version of popular…
Golf Digest
Hand-lettered titles for a story about the best golf resorts in North America. Another illustrator was hired to do oil paintings of the various resorts which were then combined with my hand lettering to make excellent vintage golf poster illustrations for the magazine.
AIGA New to You
Branding for the 2009 New to You lecture series. The type design was used on promotional materials and I letter-pressed these postcards to hand out at my lecture.
Anneli Hendrix
A hand-lettered and letterpressed baby announcement for my friend John Hendrix and his wife Andrea. Tiny type is set in the typeface Coquette by Mark Simonson
Aura
Logo and children’s menu for a Boston-based restaurant. The stylistic reference was a clean woodcut illustration.
Bordo Bello
Bordo Bello is a really fun event set up by an AIGA branch in Denver Colorado where designers are sent a blank skateboard deck and told they can do whatever they want with it. The decks were then auctioned off to support the club. This was my design, which I painted onto the deck. The tan areas…
Culinary Culture
Logo and illustrations for culinaryculture.com, a social networking site and recipe database for true foodies.
Dansko Anniversary
Dansko commissioned me to make a typographic repeat pattern to be used on their special 20th anniversary edition clogs. This was a really fun assignment, and also very challenging, as complex repeat patterns are never a walk in the park. I was really happy with how the pattern turned out and my mom…
Friends of Type
Friends of Type invited me to guest post on their wonderful site. I totally jumped at the opportunity especially since I was the first solo girl to post! (Script & Seal posted a few weeks earlier and they are 1/2 lady, 1/2 dude). I had a tonnnn of fun coming up with something new to draw every…
Sarah’s Pattern
Sarah Parmenter is one of my favorite ladies. When she asked me if I could help create a pattern to use on her iOS workshop site, I jumped at the chance. She owes me fancy drinks for life. But not really. Love you, Sarah!
Q.Bel Chocolate
Chocolate label and box design for a wonderful company that specializes in delicious natural chocolates.
Alaska Design Forum
I’ll be touring around Alaska for a week this March, making three stops for speaking engagements! I’ll be speaking on my process and showing recent projects along with all the educational nuggets I can inject into an hour-long lecture. Juneau: Gold Town Nickelodeon, 6pm Fairbanks: The Blue…
WeMake Portland
Born from the idea of creating a platform that fosters art and design within our community through hands-on experiences, workshops and design in action initiatives. WeMake hosts sketchXchange a monthly night of inspiration and drawing and a chance to peep into the sketchbooks of some of…
Lipscomb University
The Lipscomb University Art Department will host me in its Presidential Lectureship for Art and Art History on Jan. 23. The lecture will take place in the Ward Lecture Hall. Reception at 5pm in the John C. Hutcheson Gallery, talk at 6pm! The talk will be an in-depth look into my process, with tons…
AIGA Nebraska
I’ll be speaking in Omaha in February, my last traveling speaking gig for much of 2015 (no traveling from March 1st to early Fall 2015). I’ll be incredibly pregnant, so it should be a really fun talk!
Semi-Permanent Sydney 2016
We’ve ditched the lectern and curated an exciting new program that will focus not only on inspiring, but also enabling the creative community. The Thursday and Friday programs are about giving you real-time, global insights into getting the best out of your business or your role within one.…
ICON Austin
The Illustration Conference is one of my favorite conferences. This year I’ll be participating in a panel with other female illustrators as well as conducting a lecture-style workshop.
American Craft Council
“Present Tense” is the 12th national conference of the American Craft Council. The convening’s function is to locate, through the interchange of ideas, the place of craft in our contemporary moment. For two and a half days, join the ACC for a convening of moderated conversations between…
Facebook
As a part of Facebook’s artist lecture series, I talked bout my work and in particular struggling to stay small in a region obsessed with scale.
OFFF 2018
OFFF is an incredible creative conference with a huge lineup of artists from diverse backgrounds. This is my second time participating in the festival, and I’m extremely excited to head back to Barcelona.
Brand New 2018
A two-day event on corporate and brand identity with some of today’s most active and influential practitioners from around the world.
Adobe Max 2018
Adobe Max is an enormous cross disciplinary conference put on every year featuring leaders from all creative fields plus a few star celebrity keynotes. For the 2018 conference, I spoke on the publication date of my kids book!
Design Thinkers Toronto
DesignThinkers is Canada's largest annual graphic design conference, connecting designers from around the world. DesignThinkers speakers examine and discuss the trends, strategies and processes that are driving our industry. Attendees have the opportunity to explore the evolving role of design and…
Tomorrow I’ll be Brave Tour
Between late 2018 and mid 2019 I traveled all over the U.S. doing lectures and events related to my kids book. Cities visited included Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Boston, Providence, Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Omaha, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Dallas, Raleigh, Nashville, Memphis,…
40 Eats
Chris reached out for me to create the cover of the Washington Post’s Weekend section for their annual 40 Eats feature, which highlights 40 culinary things to try in DC. In previous issues, a giant 40 was a prominent feature and, as I love giant letters, I kept that in my design.
Salute the Reuser
I found out about the company Keep Cup on a trip to Australia and just fell in love with their product line. When Andy contacted me about doing a bit of work for a Keep Cup ad campaign it felt like the planets had aligned. These were my contributions to the campaign, but they also worked with a…
Fast, Fresh, and Green
Book cover and interior design for a veggie (but not entirely vegetarian) cookbook
Magic Hours
In Magic Hours, award-winning essayist Tom Bissell explores the highs and lows of the creative process. He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel of Ernest Hemingway to the final work of David Foster Wallace; from the films of Werner Herzog to the film of Tommy Wiseau to…
Savoir Fare
This guidebook for London focuses on inexpensive dining. The hand-lettered cover was made to look as though it was written on a chalkboard, emulating the menu boards of restaurants.
Shopping in Marrakech
This fun guidebook was especially fun to design. I developed the lettering first in illustrator and spent three days embroidering the cover for this book (the original now hangs on my wall). The interior is also decorated with bead and embroidery ornamentation where possible to make for a very rich…
Terroir Guides
A series of in-depth travel guides. Because these books were very text heavy, our main focus was to make the text very beautifully set.
50 and 50
50 and 50, a.k.a. The State Mottos Project, was started up by Dan Cassaro, a.k.a. Young Jerks. Fifty designers, one per state, illustrates their state motto, creating something steeped in history but completely modern and unique: a kind of designer’s atlas. I happily illustrated the motto for my…
Mess It Up
Gianni contacted me about doing a poster for his 3rd Annual Movember Poster Exhibition. He had already gotten confirmations from David Carson, Milton Glaser, Ben Bos, Andy Gilmore, Oliver Jeffers, The Stone Twins and Michael Bierut for participation in the show so I was happy to help out. 100% of…
TDC 65th Anniversary
I was honored to be asked to be a part of the Type Directors Club project to celebrate 65 years of typographic excellence. They asked 65 graphic designers, letterers, and type designers to contribute one unique number, which would be used in a special book commemorating the event. The number I was…
Art of the Cap
I love creating art for good causes and this partnership with Speedo was no exception. Every artist was assigned an amazing swimmer to create artwork for—in my case, Dana Vollmer, an olympic gold medalist who was able to have an outstanding career despite a heart condition that was corrected with…
Flash on the Beach
Now renamed “Reasons to Be Creative”. Three full days packed with amazing talks from the worlds best coders and designers. Expect lots of opportunities to mix and network with peers from over 30 countries. Expect to walk away inspired and invigorated and keen to get back to work to produce a…
Build Conference
Build is a small, yet perfectly formed, boutique design conference where interesting, talented web practitioners from all over the world come to share ideas, techniques and inspiration. Some are on stage; some are in the audience.
Design Indaba
Since 1995, Design Indaba has been committed to a vision that is built on the belief that creativity will fuel an economic revolution in South Africa. As such, Design Indaba is a celebration of design in a country iconic of the triumph of the human spirit. Proof that even the most intractable…
Party Nails
I love Party Nails. Party Nails is a side project / business set up by Taylor Watson, a lovely lady from San Francisco with a passion for all that glitters (I included a few instagrams for context). About once a month, she sets up shop in a local bar and between 7pm and 11pm (or sometimes later)…
Buzzwords of 2012
When the New York Times contacted me this year to do the Buzzwords of 2012, I was jazzed because I thought it was a perfect excuse to collaborate with my studio mate! He and I each did a sketch and then took turns working toward the final from the chosen sketch. I think it turned out great, and you…
Cancelled Weddings
I love working for The New York Times, but this project for the Sunday Styles section was especially fun. I was asked to create artwork about what happens when you have to cancel your wedding. My thoughts immediately went to fancy wedding stationery, and I had a lot of fun both writing and…
New Jersey Monthly
This was a really fun assignment and one of my first major illustrative lettering assignments. I was hired to do a typographic cover for the magazine as well as headline type for the cover story article and a full page illustration. The article intended to up your New Jersey smarts but illuminating…
Print 75
I was absolutely honored and humbled to be asked to create artwork for PRINT Magazine’s special 75th anniversary issue. Debbie Millman orchestrated and art directed the project, asking 75 notable designers and artists to create artwork using the word PRINT. They didn't run ever piece in the…
Winx
I was commissioned to create this piece for Netflix’s Tudum website when the new season of Winx was premiering as an editorial illustration to accompany an article. It was fun to make this complex word cloud design and mix and match several witchy / mystical styles.
The Jessica’s Are Turning 30
The Lily is a publication from The Washington Post that elevates stories critical to the lives of women. For their biggest project of the year, they were looking at what it’s like to be a 30-year-old woman in America today. In 1989, 30 years prior, the most popular baby girl name was Jessica.…
Minot Font
Minot is a new display typeface that I had a ton of fun making and hope you guys have just as much fun playing with it. The typeface comes in three styles: Outline, Fill, and Box, and they're meant to be used together to create multi-color headlines. I had fun messing with it myself and making…
Retail Me Not
Paravel, a wonderful digital agency in Austin, was working on an overhaul of the online coupon site Retail Me Not. They already had the website overhaul well underway but needed to bring in an expert to update the company’s logo. This was an incredibly fun but also challenging project. It was…
Party Nails
I love Party Nails. Party Nails is a side project / business set up by Taylor Watson, a lovely lady from San Francisco with a passion for all that glitters (I included a few instagrams for context). About once a month, she sets up shop in a local bar and between 7pm and 11pm (or sometimes later)…
Bing Summer of Doing
Bing put together a really fun campaign this year that I was pumped to be a part of—each day they had a letterer create a search term, something you would do in the summer. For a week, my lettering was posted one day at a time, but it was really fun to see what some of the other letterers did for…
Caramel Twist
Lettering for an advertisement that was later made to look like it was drawn in caramel. I mocked it up here, but for the final ad another illustrator dealt with the caramel effect.
Dove Chocolate
This was a really fun assignment! BBDO contacted me to be a part of their new campaign for Dove Chocolate—I would create lettering, which would then be laser cut into 3d art and then coated in chocolate. The resulting images are really cool, and I particularly like how it looks in the commercial!
Starbucks
This series of ads for Starbucks was really fun—I love seeing my lettering made into physical things (especially when those things are delicious!).
Desk Job
Wieden + Kennedy collaborated with the production company that put out An Inconvenient Truth, The Cove, and He Named Me Malala for a campaign celebrating blue collar work in America. I worked on lettering for the poster and the team at Wieden worked with 3d artists to turn my vector work into…
Chopard Valentine’s
In the fall of 2019 I was commissioned to create artwork for Chopard’s 2020 Valentine’s Day campaign. We created three custom lettering treatments—each integrating one of the featured pieces of jewelry from the collection. The team at Chopard did a wonderful job animating the artwork for use…
Alaska Lettering
I collaborated with the creative agency Hornall Anderson and Alaska Airlines to create a suite of brand phrases for use internally at Alaska. We developed a brand style—a brush script that was inspired by the logotype but had a fresh bounciness to it, and created dozens of phrases in multiple…
Combat Covid
Bader AlAwadhi from Poster House spearheaded a collaboration with Print Magazine to create posters and other artworks as a PSA to keep folks home safe in the early stages of Covid. They worked with the city of New York to get advertising space to showcase the work all over the city including in…
Barnes & Noble Classics
A series covers of classic books. The books were leather bound and the design was then foil stamped in two foil colors onto the full jacket and spine. This is probably my favorite project of all time and thanks to Jo the interiors are as beautiful as the covers. Each has marbled endpapers, painted…
The Circle
After working with Dave Eggers on Hologram for the King I was pumped to be brought on board to design his new book, The Circle. It was especially fun to design this cover, as I’ve spent the last two years living in San Francisco surrounded by the tech industry (my husband works for Facebook) and…
A Hologram for the King
When I was contacted by McSweeney’s about designing Dave Eggers’ upcoming book, I was beside myself. It felt like I was being asked to join a secret society—they assured me over and over again that there were only a few people that even knew the book was underway. I have been a fan of…
The Lolita Cover Project
I was asked by John Bertram Architects to participate in a fun project. A wide variety of designers were asked to submit an alternate cover for Nabakov’s Lolita. This is my submission, the lace lettering used to represent something that can be construed as both hyper-sexual or innocent and…
Moonrise Kingdom
This year I had the absolute honor of creating the film titles for Wes Anderson’s newest film, Moonrise Kingdom. I worked directly with Wes and his small team of co-producers to bring his vision to life. The film is based in New England in the early 60s, you can see the trailer here. The initial…
A Tale of Two Cities
A cover created for Barnes & Noble's leather-bound series, which utilizes three foil colors on leatherette. Each book in this now large series uses similar design and production constraints so that they look wonderful together on the shelf. This design was ultimately simplified to two color for…
How to Raise a Reader
An indispensable guide to welcoming children—from babies to teens—to a lifelong love of reading, written by Pamela Paul and Maria Russo, editors of The New York Times Book Review. The book itself is full of illustration by four different illustrators, and I was tasked with helping the cover tie…
Are You There God It’s Me, Margaret
It was an absolute honor to collaborate with Lionsgate on the main title design for the film adaptation of Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? The team at Lionsgate put the title design to good use at events—creating beautiful dimensional graphics—as well as activations like an International…
Dolly Parton Cover
I’m a big Dolly Parton fan (who isn’t??) so when Chronicle contacted me to help out with some lettering for her new book’s cover I was of course in! The design was handled in-house by the creative team at Chronicle and my contribution was Dolly’s name on the cover and spine.
Cake Stencils
Anne Donnard, one of my favorite art directors and someone I’ve worked with a number of times contacted me to create some designs that would then be made into food-safe cake stencils. Of course I was super excited—if you know me at all you know I love cake. Here are all of the designs I…
Evan & Christina
My friends Evan and Christina asked if I would help them out with their wedding invitations and I ended up going a little overboard. For their invites, I was very inspired by the Mira Calligraphae Monumenta—the look and feel of these pieces of art really capture Christina’s style and the style…
Interessante
Barrel + Ink pairs outstanding wine makers with artists to create unique special edition releases of wines. I was paired up with Andy Erickson, which was a match made in heaven—we got along terrifically and it was an absolute pleasure getting to know him, his family, and his wine over the course…
Love Stamp
I am beyond excited to show off this stamp design I lettered! It's taken a while to be released, but the USPS just started previewing the 2012 designs! Happily, I think these will be out by the time I have to send out my own wedding invitations, which makes it an especially celebratory release!
Mother Fucker
Cards Against Humanity and Chicago Design Museum partnered up to create an expansion pack centered around George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words. My word was “Mother Fucker”, and I had a lot of fun illustrating it. All sales benefit the museum!
Procrastiworking Poster
A number of years ago, I was asked “What’s one piece of advice you would give to aspiring designers?” by the site Humble Pied, to which I replied “The work you do when you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” This quote seemed to really ring…
PRPL Shirt
The agency PRPL (Purple Rocks Scissors) asked me, John Contino, Clark Orr, Danny Jones, Ross Moody + Mudshock, and their own Frank Rodriguez to make some swag to celebrate their new site launch. I wanted to give myself a challenge so I decided I wanted the lettering to be modern but to use a…
Ragnarok Survival Kit
This was one of the most fun projects I’ve had the pleasure of working on! John Hodgman contacted me to design a special gifty edition of his Ragnarok DVD—a survival kit full of weird and “useful” items for surviving Ragnarok. Included in the kit: survival mayonnaise, a urine flask engraved…
Sam & Jessica
Friend and Russ’s facebook coworker Sam Lessin asked me to help out with some branding for his field-day themed wedding! I loved the idea of getting together with family and doing scout-like activities. These are a few explorations I did for a monogram for the two of them, and I believe they used…
SOTA Certificate
I was totally honored to be asked by SOTA to design the Catalyst Award certificate for 2012. SOTA (the Society of Typographic Aficionados) puts on Type Con, one of my favorite conferences and one of the nerdiest events you can attend. I developed an alphabet to be used in the border of the…
SXSW Tote
It’s always fun to design for people / products / things that you are already well acquainted with (and like!) so I was very happy when SXSW contacted me to design their tote bag for 2015’s Interactive festival. In our initial meeting, they showed me previous years’ tote bags and we talked…
Tattly Designs
Tattly is an amazingly fun shop started by Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swiss Miss) selling designy temporary tattoos. Here are a few I’ve designed, and I hope there will be a whole lot more of my designs for sale in the near future!
United Pixel Workers
United Pixel Workers puts out limited edition awesome t-shirts designed by design nerds. This was my contribution and I wear it constantly.
Hallmark Signature
I partnered with Hallmark Signature to create a special artist-collaboration series of Christmas cards. Their Signature line is very special—they can use all sorts of techniques to make each card feel like a gift unto itself. I really loved the idea of each card becoming a permanent keepsake and…
An Act of Kindness
Comcast commissioned me to make this poster art for a special holiday film reuniting the one and only E.T. with Elliott and his earth family. Artists like myself were commissioned to make fun "Easter eggs" for the film's set decoration. The art direction was to create something timeless, classic,…
Reading Love Collection
Amazon approached me to create a suite of lettering pieces for use on t-shirts, hoodies, totebags, and more as a part of a collection they were calling Reading Love. Sally Singer, Amazon's head of fashion direction and a fashion expert, provided industry guidance, vision, and development and…
Caramel Twist 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. This lettering was originally created for an Eagle Brand advertising campaign and I had, at the time, simulated a 3d look in…
Live Laugh Love 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. Live Laugh Love is obviously a common phrase in hand-lettered home goods and I had fun creating this goth version—first in…
The End 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. I drew the phrase "The End" several times for a Google commission several years ago in styles that emulated the end title cards…
Wash Your Hands 3D
In the Spring of 2022, I decided to try my hand at learning 3D and specifically Blender. I created new pieces as well as bringing older pieces to life in a new dimension. I originally created this artwork as a letterpress print for 20x200—achieving the rainbow effect of the bubbles was…
Haus Holiday
Haus, a boutique D2C aperitif company, commissioned several artists to create custom packaging for a 2019 holiday campaign. I love wonderful unboxing experiences and wanted my package to feel like a beautifully gift wrapped box. I created a repeat pattern from the word for “cheers” drawn in…
Neiman Marcus Holiday 2022 PJs
Neiman Marcus commissioned me to create a massive suite of designs for their 2022 Holiday campaign. The work included the creation of a custom alphabet, character designs and spot illustrations, several custom lettering pieces, and a design system for culinary gift packaging. Several of the…
Neiman Marcus Holiday 2022 Snow Globe
Neiman Marcus commissioned me to create a massive suite of designs for their 2022 Holiday campaign. The work included the creation of a custom alphabet, character designs and spot illustrations, several custom lettering pieces, and a design system for culinary gift packaging. This beautiful musical…
Neiman Marcus Holiday 2022 Sugarfina Collaboration
Neiman Marcus commissioned me to create a massive suite of designs for their 2022 Holiday campaign. The work included the creation of a custom alphabet, character designs and spot illustrations, several custom lettering pieces, and a design system for culinary gift packaging. Neiman Marcus…
Spread Kindness
I created this piece of art to send as a special gift for folks who pre-ordered my children’s book Tomorrow I’ll be Kind. It features the main characters from the book in a warm embrace and is set in the beautiful sunset palette of the book. The art was printed by Moo in their Luxe 6x9"…
Dream a Little Dream
Literati included Tomorrow I’ll be Brave as one of their chosen books for their wonderful books-by-mail service. The month it was included, they commissioned me to make this piece of artwork to be shipped along with the books which was printed on a beautiful shimmery paper.
Malcolm X Elementary Shirt 2023
For our school’s 2023 fundraiser shirt, the PTA reached directly out to me and a few other parents who had designed shirts in the past to solicit designs. Instead of each of us coming up with our own design, we decided to collaborate! I created the lettering on this piece and fellow parent Lee…
I Love Voting Early
I believe I became aware of the #artofvotingearly grassroots campaign through my friend and fellow lettering artist/illustrator Mike Perry. The purpose of the campaign was to encourage folks to vote as early as possible to ensure a smooth election. Artists committed to voting early themselves,…
Admire and Aspire
In 2020 Facebook commissioned me to create two Mother’s Day designs for use on the site as static “cards” based on short quotes to help the community celebrate and express gratitude during the holiday. This one uses a dreamy magical sunset palette and was delivered in several format / orientations.
Type Hike
Back in 2016, James Walker and David Rygiol organized an exhibit called Type Hike in which 50+ artists created posters to represent each of America’s National Parks. This was all in celebration of the department’s Centennial anniversary. I designed a poster for Pinnacles National Park in…
This Machine Kills Spreadsheets
Blackline contacted me for a super unique project—creating lettering that would be painted on a Fender Telecaster and then given away as a prize at their annual tech conference. The quote is an obvious homage to Woody Guthrie’s iconic guitar decrying fascism. They admitted it was a slightly…
Vote Lasercut
In an effort to help get out the vote as the election neared, I created a contest on my Instagram account to win this one of these custom lasercut pieces of art. To enter the contest, you had to tag #riseupshowupunite, the grassroots effort I started with Adé Hogue, point people to vote.org, and…
AIGA Design Ranch
Design Ranch is an intimate, three-day, hands-on workshop-driven design retreat in a rustic setting on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Our workshops will rekindle your creative spark as they guide you through every facet of design and creative thinking.
Webstock
Webstock 2012 will be bestest, greatest, most amazingly awesome conference ever. In the history of the world. Fact. Two action-packed days of aspiration, inspiration and brain stimulation, starring 20+ stars of the web firmament; a veritable hotbed of uber-talent. Experts in HTML5, CSS3, responsive…
TYPO Berlin
TYPO conference speakers are innovative designers, professors, marketing experts, scientists, artists, journalists and much more. They present and discuss diverse approaches in the fields of communication and design. TYPO inspires, offers insights and experiments, encourages the exchange of…
TYPO San Francisco
TYPO conference speakers are innovative designers, professors, marketing experts, scientists, artists, journalists and much more. They present and discuss diverse approaches in the fields of communication and design. TYPO inspires, offers insights and experiments, encourages the exchange of…
