Hieroglyphs are the most beautiful and interesting collection of letterforms
For the love of typography
As a child I admired the elaborate artwork used to create lettering at the funfair or at the circus. The letters painted on the sides of buildings, trucks and canal boats. I also enjoyed letraset transfers, typewriters, american graffiti and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. What connected all of these was a developing love of typography.
I always had an appreciation of the visual aspects of language, of using letters as a form of art. It wasn't just the letters themselves but also the arrangement, the whitespace, the colour and font choices, their positions in relationship to the images used. Everything was deliberate and made in a way that worked together.
In particular, I found myself drawn to languages that used pictorial elements, iconography and glyphs. At university (Liverpoool) I gained a degree in Ancient Egyptian Grammar. Hieroglyphs are the most beautiful and interesting collection of letterforms and understanding them was very important to me. I also love history and after studying Archaeology (Oxford) I gained a master's degree in Museum Studies (Leicester).
My career started in the maintenance and repair of reprographic equipment, then graphic design, website design and finally application development (using a very different type of language). It is this background and a love of drawing and being creative that led me to wanting a physical space where I could create works using traditional typography methods whilst researching and exploring the history of letterforms.
