Lori LeBeau-Walsh

I am a commercial artist/graphic designer who has always had a passion for lettering and typography.

I was adept at hand lettering with pens & brushes as long as I can remember; I have been collecting examples of beautiful and interesting type since I was 10 years old. In fact, I was the only kid I know who had a “morgue” (I later found that’s what pros called the system I had set up with file folders to organize my art samples). And I have always been in love with signs, old and new; I taught myself sign painting when I was in high school.

As a commercial artist, I used to design and produce custom typography & logotypes in the days before the computer (hand-drawn in india ink and white paint, on photostats). To produce a “comp” you had to hand-draw & paint on your marker or pastel image, in the correct style and size of the font you were going to use. I did paste-up with type galleys, Exacto knives and rubber cement—you should have seen what we had to go through to get type on a curve!

Designing fonts in those days was the province of larger foundries and was not something I could even consider as a freelancer. Fast forward, oh, about 30 years, add vector drawing programs and font production software, and I can do something I really love. I have a fondness for retro and art deco design, so the first fonts from my company have a distinctively art-deco slant with an updated style appropriate for today’s graphics.

I am a commercial artist/graphic designer who has always had a passion for lettering and typography.

I was adept at hand lettering with pens & brushes as long as I can remember; I have been collecting examples of beautiful and interesting type since I was 10 years old. In fact, I was the only kid I know who had a “morgue” (I later found that’s what pros called the system I had set up with file folders to organize my art samples). And I have always been in love with signs, old and new; I taught myself sign painting when I was in high school.