Daily Drop Cap 

ustralian native Luke Lucas, letterer and super entrepreneur (and incredibly nice dude), makes some of the most badass hyper-illustrative type out there. You’ve probably seen his work all over design blogs as he has quite a following of fan boys and girls and his site Life Lounge is a great resource for all things art, design, and culture related. I first “met” Luke when he invited me to participate in his Life Lounge show “Some Type of Wonderful” along with a great list of other artists. When I visited Melbourne this past year, I had the opportunity to meet him in person.

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/luke-lucas-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Luke Lucas" align="left" alt="A"/>

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esides being a type designer and letterer for House Industries, Ken Barber, today’s contributor, also runs a great site called Type and Lettering which was initially created for his students at MICA and attendees of the workshops he conducts. It offers a behind-the-scenes peek at various type design and lettering projects, information on lettering materials, book recommendations and a whole bunch more. I was first introduced to Ken’s work in college, as pretty much every university student has a full body crush on House Industries work. He happened to have graduated from my alma matter, Tyler School of Art, and was lauded as a star alumni along with Paula Scher!

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/ken-barber-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Ken Barber" align="left" alt="B"/>

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ontrary to the vector nature of this drop cap, I was originally introduced to Maxwell Lord’s more hand-done crazy lettering such as this piece. He and I were both asked to participate in Luke Lucas’s project Some Type of Wonderful a year or two ago (which was a traveling art show in Australia eventually turned into a calendar) and I was totally drawn in by his crazy intricate stylings. He’s particularly savvy with blackletter inspired lettering and tattooish scripts. Check him out!

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/maxwell-lord-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Maxwell Lord" align="left" alt="C"/>

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aniel Pelavin is a seasoned letterer that I met while working for Louise Fili. According to his site, he’s in his “fourth decade of transforming and melding the images and cultural ephemera of our times into cogent and compelling messages for publishing, advertising and communication design.” His lettering work, though fairly masculine, is beautiful with just the right amount of historical inspiration. Check out this badass example. His colors are bold and bright and his technical skills are unmatched. He had a lot of fun making this D, which to me feels like a 1950s ray gun made for a 1980s film! Or maybe a really crazy jukebox?

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/daniel-pelavin-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Daniel Pelavin" align="left" alt="D"/>

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verything that Alison Carmichael makes has the perfect amount of whimsy and playfulness—even when she’s illustrating not-so-nice words (check out her store to see this one!). I’m so happy to feature such an INCREDIBLY talented lady among the guests of this alphabet—she works in a billion styles and mediums for her lettering and calligraphy (including ketchup! and in the case of this drop cap, “black treacle” (which I had to google)). I had been seeing Alison’s work all over the internet for a long while and you’ve probably seen her Clean Me calligraphy if you’ve used the internet at all in the past two years.

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/alison-carmichael-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Alison Carmichael" align="left" alt="E"/>

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riends of Type is a wonderful little dude collective that started up around the same time as Daily Drop Cap consisting of Erik Marinovich, Aaron Carámbula, Jason Wong, and Dennis Payongayong. They have a similar ethos: output fancy lettering daily (admittedly they are much stricter about their “daily”ness than I had been—hat tip, fellas). I happen to be current classmates with one of the Friends and it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know them all. It was particularly awesome when they asked me to guest post last year! Most fun ever. If you have a Duvel in front of you, drink up, it’s their studio beer of choice!

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/FOT-small.gif" title="Daily Drop Cap by Friends of Type" align="left" alt="F"/>

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ary Taxali is an amazing award-winning illustrator that you’d have to be under a rock not to know. I was absolutely thrilled when he agreed to be a part of Daily Drop Cap since I’ve been a fan of his work since I was a college student—he could probably build a Roman Empire-sized army from all of his young fans. He’s an illustrator, artist, and now children’s book author, releasing his first book this past year. High five Gary! G is for Gum!

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/gary-taxali-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Gary Taxali" align="left" alt="G"/>

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ailing from the great city of Philadelphia, The Heads of State is a ridiculously talented duo of designistrators—Jason Kernevich (my bff for life) and Dustin Summers. These guys do everything. Posters (which is what catapulted them onto the design scene almost 10 years ago), logos, book covers, illustration, ad campaigns, you name it, and each project seems smarter than the last. Their brains are as enviable as their beards. They opted for an old school production method for their drop cap—linocutting—and the result is awesome. Unrelated but sort of related, I ordered one of their Gatsby prints earlier this year and it is at the framers as we speak!! I am unbelievably excited to get it back as it’s quickly becoming my favorite possession.

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/headsofstate-small.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by The Heads of State" align="left" alt="H"/>

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absolutely love Linzie Hunter’s work! Based in the UK, she has been a leading lady in illustration and lettering for a little while now. I first stumbled upon Linzie’s work when we were competing for the same job (which she won, because she is awesomer) and when I saw her AMAZING spam lettering series, which I had the most insane case of concept/project envy for ever. I actually have a print that was a part of her 20×200 release from the series on my bedroom door. It definitely makes me giggle on a regular basis.

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/linzie-hunter-small.jpg" title="Daily Drop Cap by Linzie Hunter" align="left" alt="I"/>

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ust five years ago I met Gina and Matt through the Philadelphia illustration network (tiny as it is). Their work totally blew me away—two artists equally talented that were able to combine their powers and make some sort of super illustration? That is some Captain Planet shit right there. Gina represents the more patterny end of their collaborative work and Matt’s the more painterly parts. They’re the perfect art power couple—amazing separately but better together. I’m very happy they had time in their crazy busy schedules to participate in Daily Drop Cap! For their J, they kept it pretty and botanical, something I’m sure their little one (named Juniper) would appreciate.

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<img src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/ginaandmatt-small.jpg" title="Daily Drop Cap by Gina & Matt" align="left" alt="J"/>

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