Nicky Laatz
Nicky Laatz is a UK-based type designer who’s lovingly been designing type of all shapes and forms since 2014. She has a passion for all things creative from food to fonts. From looped and swirling scripts to bold sans-serifs and whimsical illustrations, Nicky’s style is unique and her work versatile. Nicky’s work has been featured by a variety of publications and brands including Penguin Random House, M&M’s, Victoria’s Secret, Diageo, and InStyle.
Hi Nicky! Tell us about yourself - how did you get to where you are today? What sparked your interest in design?
I actually started my career training to be a chef, due to my love of food and the creativity it offers. After finding out the adrenaline packed kitchen industry wasn’t really for me, I turned to my next love - graphic design. From there I fell in love with fonts - the variety, how simply changing the font of a project can change its personality entirely. I was a font hoarder, and built up a vast collection over the years I seen designing. At some point I decided to see how hard it is to make my own font - and found it surprisingly easy to create a simple font.That lit me up like a Christmas tree - The rest is history :)
Nicky Laatz
How would you describe your design style and how has it changed over time?
I generally don’t have a style - the world of graphic design is so very varied - and I love that about art and design. I don’t want to restrict myself to any particular type of style - I find myself constantly revived and excited by all the new trends and styles that pop up everywhere everyday. I will say though that at the start of my career, I focused more on hand drawn fonts - and am only now branching out into elegant serifs and hardy sans serifs - and loving it all.
You’re a skilled type designer and have created beautiful fonts - how did you start designing type and what is your design process like? What drew you to type specifically?
Thank you so much! I started designing fonts in Fontforge - a Free Opensource Font Design app - it had quite a steep learning curve for anything other than a basic font - but so glad I stuck with it as trial and error lead me to where I am today. My design process with handwritten fonts generally starts with paper - scanning in letters, vectorizing them - and finally tweaking them quite a bit to work together well. For Serifs and Sans - I find that I can create my initial letter concepts easily in digital form - and haven’t had the need to use paper yet. But most probably will be at some point in the future. The thing that drew me to type, is how endless the possibilities are for the shape of a typeface - the varieties are literally endless - which means creativity is endless - and that really excites me. I’ll be doing this until my fingers no longer work, or future computer software starts outwitting me : )
How do you approach creative collaboration with clients?
Truth be told - I haven’t had very much custom work with clients apart from minor letter changes and tweaks. Before I started designing fonts - I used to be a graphic designer, and the hardest part was occasionally working with tough clients who were incredibly hard to please - as a result, I tend to shy away from custom work if I can.
What’s one of your favorite projects you’ve worked on so far? What would be your dream project?
One of my more recent projects was my first variable font - Eighties Comeback - watching the interpolations between weights and variations is like magic to my eyes - it was incredibly rewarding to make. As far as my dream project - I hope it doesn’t sound cliched , but every new font I work on is basically a dream project - as I only make what I like to see - and the satisfaction from finally generating the thing my eyeballs wanted to see live and working - is a dream to me :)
Do you have any favorite design tools or resources? (podcasts, magazines, blogs, etc.)
I can’t physically go on breathing without Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fontlab. I love visiting fontsinuse.com - and seeing typefaces in action. I love reading the type typedrawers.com forum - always something interesting going on there in the type industry :)
Where do you find inspiration?
When looking for which style of typeface I want to experiment with next - I like frequenting Pinterest and Instagram (when I’m online at my office) - and out and about I love going into bookstores - just to be surrounded by a millions different types of typefaces! I also never moan when being dragged into a music shop - I could peruse CD and album covers for hours. Sometimes I get inspired just seeing a removal van drive past with a really cool handwritten slogan! When I’m in a supermarket, I get really distracted by packaging styles and the fonts used, haha! Inspiration is literally everywhere.
What advice would you give to designers just starting out?
Persevere in learning to use your font making software, the biggest challenge. Time is your friend there. There are so many course and videos out there nowadays for you to access - they weren’t around when I started out - so things should be at least easier than they were for me starting out. Don’t forget to have FUN in the process - make fonts you want to make - so that you are excited by the outcome at the end.
What are you working on now and what’s up next for you?
I’m working on about 5 different fonts - I tend to get inspired by something, start a font, then get inspired by something else and start another font, haha! But it works really well, because it’s good to have “fresh eyes” and swap between projects, I find. They all eventually come to fruition : )
