MANILA – In intricate cursive he writes, “Believe in yourself” as Seb Lester ends his talk leaving the audience with something to think about and inspiring young designers to love their own work, as he loves his.
The British typographer and illustrator talked about his evolution as an artist in seven sections: Introduction and background, student work, corporate type design, retail type design, illustration and art, calligraphy
and swearing, and a conclusion, explaining in each section the way he experiments with different platforms of art from doing portraits to designing typefaces.
He grew up doing art and riding BMX bikes and landed his first job doing typeface in a Rolling Stone magazine. Soon, people started using his typeface in all kinds of mediums from a famous newspaper in UK down to a packaging of a loaf of bread. His typeface, Neo Sans, even landed in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics as the official typeface used on the jerseys and helmets of the athletes.
“Type design is an honest profession. In 2008, my work was everywhere that almost everyone didn’t know me. Even type designers didn’t even know who I was. I was so sad because I worked so hard and no one knew who I was,” he said. “And I thought I have a bit more to offer than designing typefaces so I started thinking about illustrative art letter forms. And I started thinking about what beautiful looked like.”
And that was where his love for calligraphy started.
He gets most of his ideas by sketching on his sketchbook and posting them online to share with friends and colleagues. His works spread like wildfire on the internet and his most famous works are “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword” and “Keep it Simple.”
“I am pretty obsessed with calligraphy. It’s a very natural way to do art letter forms. It’s invigorating and has spontaneity.” He said as he showed his 4-feet high pile of sketchbook at his office.
Calligraphy opened up new doors for Seb Lester, as he got to do the book jacket for the final reissue of classic book, The Catcher in the Rye, doing calligraphy for NASA, doing letterings for card and letters with bad news written on them and gaining more and more followers on his social media accounts, especially on Instagram.
With his four years of doing calligraphy, Lester left the audience with something to ponder on, combining everything into one statement: “Believe in yourself,” written of course in intricate cursive.
Words: Carla Ambong
