There is a rich network of artists, typographers, type designers, letterers and calligraphers I admire practicing down here. One that I have been hoping to profile for sometime (we recently traced our first email exchanges back to 2013!) is an artist with a strong typographic focus based in Wellington.

"Kelly’s creative style is characterized by a bold use of colour, curvaceous forms, and clean lines. A multidisciplinary approach allows her to design across a wide variety of media and enjoy the freedom to produce work both in-studio and out in the world, adorning surfaces large and small with her colourful forms. Her work to date spans sign painting, murals/street art, illustration, apparel graphics, festival & gig branding, identity design and more."

One of Kelly's most recent pieces was a collaborative effort with Christchurch based illustrator Natasha Vermeulen created for the 2017 Graffiato: Taupo Street Art Festival (one of New Zealand’s premier street art events). ‘These glistening snakes and dew laden spiderwebs  symbolise the dark side of placing too much value on material wealth, and tell the tale that all that truely glitters is of this earth, and can not be bought.’ An intricate, beautifully considered and impeccably crafted artwork.

The wall is approx 25x8m; the type is all aerosol, and the illustration all brushed acrylic. These talented ladies spent 35 hours up a scissor lift to create the gigantic piece (particularly impressive that this was also Natasha’s first wall!).

I asked Kelly to share some insights about the piece and her practice.

I first connected with Newcastle based letterer, typographer and illustrator Sophie Elinor Brown when Sophie reached out via instagram after hearing about a shitty situation I was dealing with to offer support. Sophie was sharp witted, super intelligent and had a big heart - after chatting online we exchanged some letterpress prints, have kept in contact and got the opportunity to meet up at this years Typism conference.

Sophie's career spans visual arts, production media and public broadcasting, throughout she uses letterforms to tell stories (sometimes meaningful, other times downright silly, but always thoughtfully crafted).

Sophie says "typography is the place where language meets design, and where the written word is brought to life."

I think her work is really fun - I have some of Sophie's work framed in my home (one of the Ru Paul Fan Art pieces she mentions below)... Sophie has a diverse portfolio but a consistent thread throughout is her playful and well considered approach to typographic form. In November she produced a tremendous stop-motion self promotional video, so I asked Sophie to share a little more about her love of letters, process and aspirations with us to accompany the video.