font_designer: Brian Willson

Oak Street

Oak Street font

There’s a little restaurant in an old house on a sidestreet in town (Rockland, Maine, USA) called Cafe Miranda. The staff is friendly, the setting intimate, and the appetizer a basket of hot bread...

Professor

Professor font

My father is retired from teaching after a distinguished career as a professor at the University of Texas (and other colleges). He’s also retired from writing in longhand, ever since I digitized his script...

Pumpkinseed

Pumpkinseed font

The tale of Pumpkinseed began with a bit of hand-printing I noticed on the dinner menu at a local restaurant. I took a menu home for future reference. Several months later, some similar hand-lettering...

Houston Pen

Houston Pen font

Early Texas patriots had fascinating penmanship. In researching Texas Hero years ago, I had occasion to pore over copies of letters by the likes of Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, Thomas J. Rusk,...

Lamar Pen

Lamar Pen font

Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar had an exotic name for a historic Texan, but he left his mark beginning in 1836, the year of Texas independence and the first year that pioneers other than mountain men...

Marydale

Marydale font

While helping produce a trade magazine years ago, I admired the hand-lettering of the art director — a woman named Marydale — and suggested she let me model a font after her penmanship. She...

Chromosome

Chromosome font

It hit me one day that the ’60s-vintage labelmaker I had lying around might make an interesting display face. I began playing with it — clicking out letters at various pressures, scanning the results,...

Emily Austin

Emily Austin font

An indomitable woman who traveled a lot, Emily Austin (Bryan) Perry was one of the children of Moses Austin, of Austinville, Virginia. Like her famous brother, Stephen F. Austin, she settled in Texas as...

Attic Antique

Attic Antique font

Attic Antique by Three Islands Press. Flipping through a friend’s old hardbound collection of John Burroughs nature essays a while back, I thought it’d be fun to try to develop a typeface with the...

Bonsai

Bonsai font

Years ago, I developed an interest in the Japanese art of dwarfed potted trees, bonsai. I bought some books on the subject from Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In one — Handbook on Bonsai: Special Techniques...