Seb Lester

Last updated

Sebastian "Seb" Lester (born 1972 in London [1] ) is an English artist, type designer and calligrapher. Lester is notable for prominent type designs and calligraphic prints. He is also known for his videos of hand drawn calligraphy, often of famous brands, published on social media.

Contents

Lester is notable for his 2009–2010 redesigns for Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton of four covers of J. D. Salinger books, including The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey . Lester is notable for his design of the official font, Neo Sans, of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. A customized version of Neo is also used by Intel. Lester also helped develop the mastheads for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph in the UK and the Waitrose corporate typeface. Lester designed the September 28, 2009 cover of Business Week . In 2014 it was reported he had been commissioned by NASA to design the logo for the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. [2]

In addition to type design, Lester is famous for his prints, many of which are characterized by words built up of rich, dense calligraphic strokes and flourishes. Lester's design process is recorded in a February 11, 2010 Creative Review blog article and can also be seen in his short videos. [3]

He can be considered to be best known by the wider public for viral videos [4] of him hand-drawing well known logos. These have been widely reported in publications such as Huffington Post, [5] the UK Daily Mirror, [5] Fast Company [6] and Buzzfeed. [7] As of mid-June 2015 Seb Lester had nearly 1 Million followers across his social media accounts [8] [9] [10] where he publishes videos of him performing his calligraphy. In March 2016, his work makes the cover of the 33rd issue of Very Nearly Almost [11] where he talks about the effects of the digital media presence in his career and creative process. [3] [10] In June 2015 he was also featured in a BBC video report, where he was referred to as the "Banksy of calligraphy". [12]

Lester studied graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London, graduating in 1997, and started designing typefaces for Monotype in the early 21st Century. He lives and works in East Sussex, England. [2]

Typefaces

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hermann Zapf</span> German type designer and calligrapher (1918–2015)

Hermann Zapf was a German type designer and calligrapher who lived in Darmstadt, Germany. He was married to the calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Typefaces he designed include Palatino, Optima, and Zapfino. He is considered one of the greatest type designers of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sans-serif</span> Typeface classification for letterforms without serifs

In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque, § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist, and § Other or mixed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Typeface</span> Set of characters that share common design features

A typeface is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Carter</span> British type designer (born 1937)

Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used typefaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Futura (typeface)</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period. It was developed as a typeface by the Bauer Type Foundry, in competition with Ludwig & Mayer's seminal Erbar typeface of 1926.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Univers</span> Neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface family

Univers is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk, it was notable for its availability from the moment of its launch in a comprehensive range of weights and widths. The original marketing for Univers deliberately referenced the periodic table to emphasise its scope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gill Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface family

Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederic Goudy</span> American printer and type designer (1865–1947)

Frederic William Goudy was an American printer, artist and type designer whose typefaces include Copperplate Gothic, Goudy Old Style and Kennerley. He was one of the most prolific of American type designers and his self-named type continues to be one of the most popular in America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monotype Imaging</span> American typesetting and typeface design company

Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with consumer electronics devices. Based in Woburn, Massachusetts, the company has been responsible for many developments in printing technology—in particular the Monotype machine, which was a fully mechanical hot metal typesetter, that produced texts automatically, all single type. Monotype was involved in the design and production of many typefaces in the 20th century. Monotype developed many of the most widely used typeface designs, including Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Arial, Bembo and Albertus.

Raymond Larabie is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns Typodermic Fonts type foundry, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Gothic</span> Family of sans-serif fonts

Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head designer Morris Fuller Benton. "Gothic" was a contemporary term meaning sans-serif.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kris Holmes</span>

Kris Holmes is an American typeface designer, calligrapher, type design educator and animator. She, with Charles Bigelow, is the co-creator of the Lucida and Wingdings font families, among many other typeface designs. She is President and Co-Founder of Bigelow & Holmes Inc., a typeface design studio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kabel (typeface)</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Kabel is a geometric sans-serif typeface that was designed by the German designer Rudolf Koch and released by the Klingspor foundry from 1927 onward.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Koch</span> German type designer and calligrapher

Rudolf Koch was a German type designer, professor, and a master of lettering, calligraphy, typography and illustration. Commonly known for his typefaces created for the Klingspor Type Foundry, his most widely used typefaces include Neuland and Kabel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotis</span> Typeface family

Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Scala</span> Old-style serif typeface

FF Scala is an old-style serif typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1991 for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The FF Scala font family was named for the Teatro alla Scala (1776–78) in Milan, Italy. Like many contemporary Dutch serif faces, FF Scala is not an academic revival of a single historic typeface but shows influences of several historic models. Similarities can be seen with William Addison Dwiggins' 1935 design for the typeface Electra in its clarity of form, and rhythmic, highly calligraphic italics. Eric Gill's 1931 typeface Joanna, with its old style armature but nearly square serifs, is also similar in its nearly mono-weighted stroke width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centaur (typeface)</span> Serif typeface

Centaur is a serif typeface by book and typeface designer Bruce Rogers, based on the Renaissance-period printing of Nicolas Jenson around 1470. He used it for his design of the Oxford Lectern Bible. It was given widespread release by the British branch of Monotype, paired with an italic designed by calligrapher Frederic Warde and based on the slightly later work of calligrapher and printer Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi. The italic has sometimes been named separately as the "Arrighi" italic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monotype Grotesque</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

Monotype Grotesque is a family of sans-serif typefaces released by the Monotype Corporation for its hot metal typesetting system. It belongs to the grotesque or industrial genre of early sans-serif designs. Like many early sans-serifs, it forms a sprawling family designed at different times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumner Stone</span> American typeface designer and graphic artist

Sumner Stone is a typeface designer and graphic artist. He notably designed ITC Stone while working for Adobe. A specimen of ITC Stone is shown at his personal website.

Neo Sans and Neo Tech are the typefaces designed by the British type designer Sebastian "Seb" Lester. The typefaces were released by Monotype Corporation on April 19, 2004. The design concept called for a versatile, futuristic typeface that didn't look "crude, gimmicky or ephemeral".

References

  1. ↑ Sebastian Lester. Biography [ dead link ]
  2. 1 2 "Seb Lester Designs Logo for NASA Space Mission - Logo Designer". www.logo-designer.co. 15 August 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Instagram post by Seb Lester • Jun 8, 2015 at 3:03pm UTC". Instagram.
  4. ↑ "LADbible". www.facebook.com.
  5. 1 2 Frank, Priscilla (7 May 2015). "This Calligraphy Wizard Can Recreate Any Font With His Pen" – via Huff Post.
  6. ↑ "Watch A Calligrapher Recreate Famous Logos In Mere Seconds". 27 March 2015.
  7. ↑ "This Guy's Calligraphy Instagrams Will Make You Feel Immensely Calm". BuzzFeed .
  8. ↑ "Seb Lester". www.facebook.com.
  9. ↑ "Seb Lester (@seblester) • Instagram photos and videos". instagram.com.
  10. 1 2 "Seb Lester". YouTube.
  11. ↑ "VNA 33 – Out Now!". 14 March 2016.
  12. ↑ "How video saved the calligraphy star". BBC News. 18 June 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.