I am comforted by the fact that I have been thinking of having a name that’s not my own name since the day I started my foundry but at the time I only had terrible ideas (Adorable Type Foundry, Sprinkles Type Foundry, Party Type Foundry, Tea and Type Foundry, etc.). I really needed to run the foundry for 5 years and figure out who I wanted to be as a business. Then I needed to sit with the idea for a couple years to make sure it still fit, and I’m happy to report that I’m almost confident enough in Arcane Type Foundry that I would get it tattooed onto myself (almost… I don’t have a single tattoo because I have tattoo commitment issues, hahaha).
Why Not My Own Name?
When I was thinking of how my brand could authentically communicate who I was and what I do, I came to the realization that working under your name means absolutely nothing unless you are ubiquitous enough that a lot of people know who you are (not my reality). Truly, a name tells you nothing until you get to know the person behind it. So if it’s not helping grow my brand because I’m totally not famous, I thought, let’s give people a better word to associate with my typefaces.
A secondary reason is that I greatly dislike being the centre of attention and I don’t want to make it all about me. These days, it’s hard to stay out of the spotlight when you run a small business, but if my brand can stand on its own a bit more, it’s kinda a relief. On a related note, I don’t think anyone wants a shirt with my face on it, but “Arcane Type Foundry” merch sounds really freaking fun.
Why Arcane?
After a 5-year journey of running a type foundry I decided to lean into that fact that I am a huge nerd. I love anime, video games, Dungeons and Dragons, Lego, board games, fantasy, fiction, and most of all, type design.
In many of the fantasy worlds across these nerd things, magical characters like clerics or sorcerers often receive their magic from another powerful entity like a god—usually with some kind of deal to use that magic in service of that entity. But wizards get their magic from books, learning, and studying. They work hard for their knowledge, research the arcane arts like crazy, and eventually are able to turn that into what we perceive as magic. This feels so much like type design to me.
As a self taught type designer, I gobbled up books, dove into archives, spoke to other wizards, and then produced fonts. And these fonts—all fonts, really—are such an amazing form of magic! Most people don’t consciously realize the effect of fonts on their every day lives as the letterforms add layers of meaning to our written communication. If the fonts hit a certain aesthetic, we can subtly communicate to our audience. If the fonts function well, it makes the job of the designer easier. If the fonts contain the right characters, it creates opportunity for endangered languages to be displayed, spoken, and learned. And that’s just scratching the surface of all the things that fonts can do.
The word “Arcane” means something is mysterious, secret, and understood by few—but it’s learnable if you know where to look. And that’s a whole other dimension of what I do. I love to design my fonts out in the open, share my process, and teach others about these mysterious, arcane ways. And aside from the deep and meaningful reasons for the word Arcane, it also starts with an ‘A,’ and will appear near the top of alphabetical lists (so helpful!).
Arcane Type Foundry is about creating fonts that meet your needs and never let you down. It’s about creating fonts from a place of deep understanding of the technical, aesthetic, and psychological aspects of type design. It’s about designing letterforms with a nerd who truly believes that fonts are magic and wants to bring that magic to the communities around them.
Thank you so much for continuing to travel with me on this type design adventure, I am thankful for each and every one of my party members and quest givers—you all bring something unique and necessary to the main quest we are all on!