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Type West Alumni Spotlight
What happens after graduating from Letterform Archive’s type design program? Eight grads talk about how they’ve used their newfound skills.
As Type West’s class of 2025 rolls into its final term, we’re marking a major milestone: after this year, more than 200 students (including Type@Cooper West classes of 2017 and 2018) residing in 22 countries will have graduated from the yearlong certificate program.
Mastering typeface design is about making fonts, yes, but it’s also about learning how to see type and letterforms in a deeper way. Type West alumni often say that they’ve boosted all their typographic skills, from selecting and setting type, to lettering and logo design.
In this spotlight, eight global Type West graduates show how they are putting their expertise to work, joining foundries and starting their own, releasing fonts on the retail market, designing custom typefaces for clients, and implementing bespoke lettering in brand design. And they’re raking in some prestigious accolades while they’re at it.
Adriana Garcidueñas
Adriana Garcidueñas attended TypeWest Online from her home in Morelia, México. Her graduate project was Hell.Inc, three styles acting as a typographic metaphor for Dante’s journey in The Divine Comedy. Adriana snagged a job in type design a few months after she graduated when the foundry Arabic Typography spotted her work on the Type West 2023 website. Earlier this year she launched her latest typeface Tlayuda on Future Fonts. But Adriana isn’t done learning — she just earned a coveted spot in next year’s Type & Media master program at KABK in The Hague.
I think Type West makes you decide if you really want to dive into this world. For me, it was the confirmation that I truly wanted to do this for a living. And then that first job was the manifestation!
Emily Klaebe
Emily Klaebe has been shaping identity systems at Order since 2020, and in 2021 she took on the expanded role of leading design at Order Type Foundry. She completed Type West in 2022 with the typeface Francine, and the revival Stringer, which she eventually released at Order Type Foundry. Building on her Type West experience, in 2023 she co‑taught a course on the foundations of typeface design at Portland State University alongside Travis Kochel.
Jamie Otelsberg
Jamie Otelsberg is a visual and type designer whose work spans multiple continents. She originally hails from Agoura, California, and now lives in Bochum, Germany. Attending Type West Online in 2021, Jamie created Theka, a Latin display family inspired by hand‑painted municipal signs and ads from rural South India. After graduating, she joined OH NO Type Co. as Studio Admin. She also contributes as a type designer and font production assistant, helping with both custom and retail projects.
Before joining Type West, I spent several years working in graphic and user experience design, but I felt a strong urge to delve into type design. The comprehensive design and development curriculum provided me with a solid foundation to expand my skills, as well as a supportive community of peers/mentors to learn from and with. It was an unforgettable experience that profoundly shaped both my career and personal trajectory.
Iván Castro
Iván Castro completed Type West Online 2022 from El Salvador, and has since dedicated his practice to shaping typefaces and typographic concepts that balance precision and personality. His Type West project Ecléctica was picked up by the Sudtipos foundry. He is also the co‑founder of Cabinete, a design collective aimed at creating a platform for Central American type and typographic projects.
Libbie Bischoff
In 2019, after getting accepted to Type West, Libbie Bischoff packed up her life in Minnesota and traveled over 2,000 miles to San Francisco to attend the program in person. After graduating in 2020, she launched a bold creative challenge: designing 52 fonts in one year, exploring a wide range of typographic styles and laying the foundation for her future work. Since then, Libbie has focused on building her foundry, Type Du Nord. She also recently published Socko on Kel Troughton’s Overlap Type, and got a commission from Docusign to design new eSignature fonts. Libbie generously shares her expertise through her newsletter and teaching.
Type West was pivotal in kickstarting my type design career. With weekly feedback from my instructors, I was able to advance my skillset and hone my critical, typographic eye. I could not be where I am — making type and teaching others how — without first learning from the talented folks in this program.
Leopoldo Leal
When São Paulo-based designer Leopoldo Leal joined the online cohort in 2022 he already had over two decades of in experience in design, including a Ph.D and awards from the Type Directors Club, Brasil Design Awards, and Latin American Design Awards. His Type West project, Sea Of Hills, is a mature text typeface inspired by the writing of Brazilian author Carlos Drummond de Andrade. He now leads Pandemonium Type, where he creates custom typefaces—most notably a vibrant color variable font for Guaraná Antarctica—and applies typographic thinking to brand identities. Leopoldo also teaches type design and visual identity at ESPM-SP and École Intuit Lab.
Martha Sue Coursey
Martha Sue Coursey is an artist and illustrator whose imagination lies at the intersection of narrative and letterform. She earned a BFA in painting from the California College of the Arts before joining Type West 2020 in San Francisco. Her Type West project evolved into the typeface Curiously, an old‑style serif display family with ornaments inspired by 15th‑century roman types and nostalgic children’s books. The typeface is now available through Future Fonts along with her follow-up, Magik Wanda. Today, she dedicates herself to illustration (such as Penguin/Random House’s Essential Life Skills for Boys), type design, and fine art.
Type West was a transformative experience in many ways — the most surprising one being its impact on my fine art and illustration work. Learning to craft letters and typefaces changed how I see shapes, lines, and commonalities across a series of images. This has crept into everything I make! It’s like a new kind of magnifying glass I use to zoom way in or out and it helps me understand how images are working as a group.
Natalia Kowaleczko
Founder and Creative Director of Pact, Natalia Kowaleczko has over 15 years of experience working at the intersections of branding, design, advertising, and experiential design. She builds clever, intentional brand systems that feel distinct and meaningful. In 2019, she joined Type West with the aim to enhance the services her studio provides. Natalia believes type design is a core asset in crafting unique brand identities. That ethos shines in the work she does at Pact, such as the typography for Terra Regenerative Capital and her multi-year identities for SF Design Week.
Applications for Type West 2026 are now open and close November 2, 2025.
Have more questions? Join us for a for a relaxed and friendly online information session on October 29. Hear recorded stories from current students, alumni, and instructors, and meet administrators who will answer your questions about the program, application steps, scholarships, access to the Archive’s resources, and more.