Name a designer or artist you greatly admire or are most inspired by: “Jessica Hische. Her Daily Drop Cap series where she created a different illustrated capital letter every day, going through the alphabet twelve times was truly inspiring! I love how she combines typography, design and illustration. The end result is a beautiful piece of art but also a functioning advertisement. Almost everything she makes has hand-lettering in it. For me, I connect and am motivated by her method because that’s what I truly love doing too.”

What’s your process for creating hand-drawn type, or for crafting a typographic treatment? “Tons of sketch book work all the time and just making all the time. A lot of that process infuses into new projects as they come along. Much of my lettering work is made up as I go — I have found it helpful to map out the words in a composition to use as a loose guideline for my illustration. I try to not only do hand drawn type. I like to think of myself as multifaceted but I really enjoy doing it and it comes naturally so it often ends up in the work.”

What was the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you about being or working as a designer? “No one gets it right the first time.”  Great products don’t spring from great designers; instead, they were usually the result of a lot of trial and error, missteps and blind alleys, hard work and deep thinking. There’s no secret sauce. Great designers aren’t those with the most natural talent, or the smartest, or can draw the best. Great designers are those who’ve designed great products, period. And the only way to design those is the hard way. No one gets it right the first time.”

What was the last movie you watched that impacted you in some way? “Holy Motors (2012) It was visually stunning! To be honest, I’m still a little confused by it however by the end of the film, I was shaken, intrigued and left wanting to know more. It has the power to haunt as much as to amuse, to me that’s a good piece of art.”

I am currently a graphic designer and painter based out of Orlando, Florida. I graduated from The University of Central Florida with a degree in graphic design. I spend much of my free time working on projects that include my love for typography through my own company K. Rad Designs. Currently I’m working on series of hand drawn type greeting cards.

Follow Karla on Twitter.

Each Tuesday we’ll feature a designer who loves type or a type that designers love. If you would like to be featured in Type Tuesday, send your portfolio or website link and a short bio to socialmedia@orlando.aiga.org.