Brave People
Today, I was reading through last year’s Hobonichi Techo (incidentally, I’ve just ordered another for 2022; it’ll be a late start, but you know what they say) and I came across an entry in regard to this drawing: “I’m working on typography experiments today and I have a profound new respect for the brave people in the field of hand-lettering.”
It made me laugh. I remember starting this piece thinking I’d knock it out fairly quickly. Wrong-o. I think it took me multiple sittings, drawing and redrawing between and during phone calls at work to get it to a point of tolerability. Have you ever tried to create perspective with a font you’re making up? Surely I was doing something wrong. Anyway, I think the things which are off about it are ultimately what make me like it as much as I do.
As for the phrase itself, it’s something I’d come up with in school and thought was clever. Playfully existential. I had plans to incorporate it into my Photography final or something, but it never came to fruition. A. said it reminded him of the killer question Jude Law asks in I Heart Huckabees: “How am I not myself?” I love that.