Road Writers

The hard men of typography! A couple of strips of gaffer instead of a baseline grid and years of sweat and muscle instead of daily searches on designspiration.

I feel like a phoney, a patsy, a schmuck. I’ve been designing with type for almost 20years and all I have to show for it is carpal tunnel and a lovely postcard from Jason Smith’s studio every few months (not even personalised anymore).

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It’s not elegant, but it has personality. It even has consistency, these words at a glance look the same in every street in the UK. But they are not created by a machine, they are not stenciled. Hell, I swear the guy wasn’t even looking as he swept the last stroke on the ‘Y’ of ‘ONLY’ distracted by the banter if his pal and the steam gurgling from the furnace.

Look closely and you can see the flaws, scoff at the mistakes, but through the ascenders and descenders of my pixel bound workspace, I envy their human touch and unpredictable character.