When it comes to journaling, type matters. Some of us have accomplished handwriting whereas others may not have scratched a pen across a page since it was assigned to us in school. Nevertheless, nowadays it's pretty easy to enjoy the spoils of life as we shoot off a message at the leisure of our fingertips and not think twice about handwriting a note. So when we come across some fine penmanship, we want to share it with the world.
We met up with Instagram inspiring type artist, Haya, to learn more about her love and passion for lettering, type, fonts and more. See our first featured artist of our series "How I Journal" below.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
"My flat lay set up is all really inspired by @1924us, but my actual content varies. Most of the inspiration comes from the motivation and support that I receive from all ends for everything I create. Since I’m really trying to portray myself through the style I have, each piece has a meaning to me of some sort. Whether it's a drawing of a wildflower to lyrics from my favorite bands like Mondo Cozmo or City and Colour, there’s something behind each series I do and each piece I create."
What do you look for in a good journal?
"Paper quality is a huge factor for me, it needs to be thick enough to where bleeding ink is minimal! Also, the look and feel to the journal is really important to me, but it’s REALLY hard to find journals that look amazing and have amazing paper quality. I hoard journals like it’s my job because I find so many beautiful journals from all over the world, but I won’t use more than half of them because of how terrible the paper quality is."
How did you get into fonts/writing?
"So, in Kansas City, there was a really well-known artist named Casey Ligon (@caseyligon) who I stumbled upon on Instagram a few years back. I obsessively started following her and went to a workshop of hers and it’s been ongoing since then."
"If you saw some of the work I used to create a few years back, you’d be surprised it’s the same person creating the pieces haha. I was really drawn to lettering because of how it can really be molded to a person and their style, but also how it literally portrays a message in all literal senses of what’s being said right there."
What does it mean to you?
"Lettering has really changed its meaning to me these last few years. 2016 was a tough year where I spent more than half of the year stuck on how to curate work that followed what my audience wanted and how to sell my work as opposed to just embracing everything as a whole and not worrying about everyone’s opinion. This year I started fresh with a new meaning of what lettering is to me. It’s just a form of art where it’s a representation of how I’m feeling and how I’m growing as a person and artist."
What tools/materials do you use? Asking for a friend :)
"I actually created my first piece about 10 times before I was happy with it. My advice: simply keep at it. For my art, I use a variety of my favorites such as Blackwing pencils, micron pens, black drawing paper, Rustico journals and even have used regular white charcoal pencils that I found in a stash of charcoal pencils I had in my garage!"
Do you have a favorite font?
"Oh definitely, Helvetica is by far my favorite font. It’s a classic, so simple and so bold. It’s also really fun to study and practice writing out."
You said doughnuts run your life? Do tell.
"You’ll never catch me not eating a doughnut or not talking about how amazing doughnuts are. See, even in this blurb, I’m talking about how doughnuts are so damn awesome. Fave doughnut has to be a regular, unglazed, super plain cake doughnut. Mouthwatering perfection. Goodness, gracious."
For more of Haya's artwork and inspired writing, be sure to follow her on Instagram.
