Creating DecoWick

Handlettering Design and Custom Pattern Creation

Ever since I can remember I’ve loved typography. Even before I knew there was a term for it, I collected letterforms, marveled at ligatures, and held on to cast metal movable typesetting pieces. Oh!… Remember the days when elementary schools only had one room devoted to computers?! The computer lab… How many of you got jazzed turning on that apple machine seeing those 1991 TrueType fonts in all their graphic glory!!! 

In the early days of my graphic design studies, professors insisted we learned to hand draw type. Microns in hand, I was hooked and fell deeply in love. Painstaking hours spent kerning or agonizing over just the right x-height to express the right tone for the word. So many aspects allowed my love of type to be deep and complex. Like words being used in environmental applications taking up grand weight and form to its use as architecture on the page, letting the minimal shapes become the graphic itself. Recently digital tools have advanced so much that the lines between what is considered “handmade” or digitally created blur and I would argue now- are inherently both. 

I am so excited to share a new project I have been working on that explores digital designs made to look like they’re created using traditional media. In early 2021, I started DecoWick as a design project to explore hand lettering, experimental typography, color, and pattern. What an excellent process so far! I’ve worked with some fantastic and inspiring people. I have been increasingly busy with some enjoyable commission projects and murals. I invite you to check out some of the work at DecoWick.com. Also, follow along for more “behind the scenes” stuff on Instagram.

Long Live the Ligature!