Alison Carmichael

Alison Carmichael has been in the industry for over 20 years. Her distinctive style of hand lettering has been used for some huge brands including KFC, Boots and Cadbury’s to name but a few.

Her style is best known for it’s flowing cursive letterforms which are popular with brands as it gives a more personal feel than something produced digitally. By hand lettering instead of using pre-existing fonts, Carmichael is able to create something bespoke which matches the tone her clients are aiming for. SInce so much of typography today is produced digitally, this makes her work stand out.

Carmichael’s work goes far beyond standard handlettering practices. She often uses unconventional materials to produce her typography. For example, she used ketchup to produce the cover of Time Out London’s Cheap Eats issue.

It is her signitaure cursive hand lettering but using ketchup as the medium contrasts such a precise and beautiful style. It invites the viewer to smile at the contrast and ask questions. How did she get it so neat?

Carmicheal discusses her process for this piece in an interview with Pen Heaven. She states that ” it’s all about scale!! With something like the ketchup on the cover of time out for the “cheap eats” issue, it appeared that the lettering was about the same size as a normal dinner plate. It was, in fact much bigger than that and resized digitally. I created the artwork in pencil on paper and then enlarged it and printed it out at the size I wanted to create it. Then I used graphite rubdown paper to create a feint outline of the lettering on the surface that it was being photographed on and then carefully filled and built up the shapes of the letters using the wrong end of a teaspoon – So no clever digital trickery there!”.

Further examples of this approch in her work include using flour for KFC and sprinkles in a piece called There’s a Good Girl which was produced for the Viva Women Exhibition put together by Jo Wallace of Saatchi and Saatchi to showcase the work of ground breaking female creatives.