Bel Johnstone is an illustrator who has been previously known for her distinct ‘Dotsploration’ style characterised by fine hand-drawn dots. Bel’s illustrations have been seen in various publications including Computer Arts magazine, Desktop Magazine, Blanket Magazine, CURVY and also in numerous exhibitions throughout the country. In 2009 she received an 'Award of Excellence' in the Communication Arts Illustration annual.

Lately her style has taken a diversion and she has allowed her obsession and her love for illustrative typography to shine through. In all her illustration work she feels strongly about being an innovator and her type work is no exception. Her type explores the restraints of legibility allowing the letterforms to control the composition and become the main focus of expression, working alongside any pictorial elements that are included. She aims for the compositions to be free flowing and for the letterforms to interact with one another becoming beautiful pictorial elements of their own not just type sitting rigid on a page. To achieve this most of her type is drawn free-hand without the use of fonts, except for the occasional reference as inspiration.