Joseph Churchward, QSM was an Samoan-born type designer who lived and worked in New Zealand for much of his life. He was responsible for creating an unprecedented amount alphabets (I often hear different numbers, but I believe it to be close to, or more than 600) on top of an already prolific career in lettering and design. His work has been published by Berthold Type Foundry and one of his most well known works still in use today is the lonely planet logo.

 

David Bennewith of Colophon created an amazingly beautiful book containing much of his work, and it’s quite something. Joe’s approach, work and life have been an inspiration for me. I made this piece of lettering not because Joe liked Spencerian scripts, but because I feel an affinity with this style and that’s something I’ve learned from him because he did it constantly, he made work that he cared about.