Designer and letterer, Lauren Hom, sort of stumbled into her career by chance. “Me becoming a hand letterer was a happy accident,” recalled the Detroit-based letterer in an interview with Freelance Wisdom. “I actually went to art school for creative advertising and started my career at an ad agency. I always had an interest in lettering, but it was just a hobby…until it wasn’t!”
According to her, it was her senior year of college when she started a blog called Daily Dishonesty as a fun project to practice lettering. “It ended up going viral, landing me a book deal, and circulating my work around the web,” she explained. “Within about a year, I had enough freelance work to comfortably leave my full-time agency job, and I’ve been paying the bills with lettering ever since.”
Now, her colorful designs, playful letterforms, and quirky copywriting have been featured in publications like TIME Magazine, with collaborations with brands like Starbucks, Google, AT&T, and YouTube.
“When things get really dire and I can’t seem to focus or get motivated, my weird secret weapon is to stop what I’m doing, go to the kitchen, and chop vegetables to make salsa,” said Hom. “I think that productivity compounds, so if I complete a small task like making salsa, it makes me feel good and that feeling carries over into my work day. Oh and also, now I have a delicious bowl of salsa, which makes the day even better.”
Take a look at some of her playful designs in the gallery below.