11 5 Minute InTRU­views down how many to go? Today we talk to Laura Dapito of Likelet­ter Projects, Inc. Unfor­tu­nately, her site was infected with mal­ware and is cur­rently expe­ri­enc­ing issues(*prolly because she is a greedy cap­i­tal­ist sell­out), so be sure to keep in touch via her twit­ter to see when it comes back around! Lets get on with this excel­lent interview.

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Laura Dapito: i’m a lit­tle ner­vous! the first ques­tion could be anything!

Trude­sign: So tell me, do you.….like…letters? And who is this that I am speak­ing to that Like let­ters so much?

LD: i cer­tainly do like let­ters. the cor­re­spon­dence kind and the letter-form kind.
LD: and this is Laura Dapito of Likelet­ter Projects
LD: I also really like it when my dog tries to destroy card­board boxes under my desk because i’m not pay­ing atten­tion to her.

Tru: Do you think this like of let­ters started from some child­hood trauma, maybe your Hel­vetica let­ter block tower fell when you were stand­ing on it try­ing to get to the ABC cereal sit­ting on the counter?

LD: yes, my mother never let me buy Alphabits cereal.
LD: all my cere­als were shaped like globs of grain or whatever.

Tru: Oh noes! Kick it! Firmly but with love
Tru: So what kind of projects does likelet­ters take on

LD: what­ever pays the bills. “we” are a really busi­ness ori­ented busi­ness. lol.
LD: before likelet­ters, i used to work in fash­ion advertising.

LD: so a lot of my clients are fashion-based and i do basi­cally every­thig start to fin­ish print and web.

Tru: Have you ever designed your own full Font. or is all your work one off originals?

LD: oh, no i’ve never designed my own full font. it’s all one-off project-specific content-specific dri­vel doodles

Tru: Excel­lent, have you been doo­dling for a long time? Cul­ti­vate that doo­dling with higher edu­ca­tion maybe?

LD: i don’t like all the let­ters in the alpha­bet enough at the same time to make all the let­ters equally nice.

Tru: lol, me too, R is a prob­lem.
Tru: we’ve had words.
Tru: 1 minute

LD: yes, doo­dling since kinder­garten, and did some under­grad at FIT (for graphic design not fash­ion), and then grad school at MCAD where i got a mas­ters in lit­er­ally doo­dling.
LD: i have to take it back, i like all the let­ters.
LD: i cant let this inter­view go to print and have any of the let­ters be mad at me.

Tru: Thats super fan­tas­tic!  Oh, even the ligatures?

Tru: yes. espe­cially the lig­a­tures.
Tru: i’m cur­rently really into ampersands

Tru: Ack so many more ques­tions to ask but so much neg­a­tive time on the clock!

LD: are we over?

Tru: OoooOOoo!
Tru: yes
Tru: unfortunately

[totally sneak­ing in another minute of inter­view here, Ignore this bla­tant dis­re­gard for my own format!]

LD: it’s ok.

Tru: BUT
Tru: if you love ampersands…i have a link for you

LD: fan­tas­tic!
LD: just for the record Baskerville Italic amper­sand is pretty deli­cious.
LD: and Spek­tro Roman for a more con­tem­po­rary face

[insert shame­less self pro­mo­tion here]

Tru: http://www.typesociety.org/fontaid.html
Tru: IF you notice the list of design­ers at the bot­tom, I hap­pen to be one
Tru: I designed the worst amper­sand in the book, but no one told the judges that

LD: thank good­ness for the find feature

Tru: in the font rather
Tru: http://www.ascenderfonts.com/font/coming-together-font.aspx and type the num­ber 2
Tru: in the sam­ple box

LD: ah, it’s not the worst.
LD: it looks like i could be friends with that ampersand

Tru: too kind you are. the font was for haiti aide
Tru: and i was think­ing build­ing blocks, unset­tleed
Tru: and also, what can i get done in 20 minutes

[end shame­less self promotion]

LD: ah that’s very con­cep­tual and noble of you.

Tru: Soooo super awe­some thank you for the inter­view, it will likely be up later this week!

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Very spe­cial thanks to Laura for bear­ing with me through that, I got to talk to her for a while, excel­lent per­son to get to know and a great designer of typo­graphic designs as well. Remem­ber to fol­low her on Twit­terTomor­row, [aka when I remem­ber to put up the next one] is an inter­view of Momma Mazza of Blue Agate!

*Her words not mine!:
Laura Dapito: i know — i look like a greedy cap­i­talst sell-out.
Laura Dapito: you should put that in the intro for the post

 

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