I Love Ugly Future League by Jheryll Richardson

We've just released our first ever font, the I Love Ugly Future League. You can download this font here. We commissioned European based designer Jheryll Richardson to design and produce this on our behalf. We asked Gilleam Trapenberg to pay Jheryll a visit at the studio, and Gilieam caught up with Jheryll to find out a bit about his background. Enjoy. 

Where did you grow up? 
A sunny island in the caribbean called Curaçao, which used to be part of he dutch kingdom till 2010. I lived there for 18 years with my parents and siblings. Going fishing in the weekends and camping in the holidays is how i spent my youth other than going to school and playing a lot of sports in the meantime (mostly soccer). 

Tell us briefly about what you have been up to for the last 5 years.
Mostly finding my own identity and figuring out what I want in life. In 2010 I moved from Curaçao and migrated to the Netherlands. When I got here I started my study to become a graphic designer. School did not push my creativity so i took on allot of freelance jobs. Pushing myself to get better with each opportunity. I did a lot of branding and some marketing campaigns with a few artists.

In 2012 a couple of school friends and I started a little collective called Brokedays. Other than the fact that we were broke, our goal was to try and motivate people to make something out of nothing. We made a few small runs of t-shirts and gave a bunch of stickers away for free, we made around 5,000. It was funny to see our stuff back on trains, in stores and even on Instagram people were hashtagging Brokedays. People still ask me for stuff but the group grew apart so we haven't made anything for a while now. 

After that i really started focusing on developing my own style, only started taking design jobs in which i could experiment with that. Over the years i created a very recognisable style which i’m very content with. A lot of lines, black and white, dots and curls, can be found in my design work.

What made you want to get into graphic design, and specifically font design? Have you wanted to do this for a long time?
My father founded an advertising agency when i was 14 or 15. I always loved to visit the office and he used to tell me what type of big projects they where working on. After that i naturally started looking around checking what kind of logos where made. asking myself what would i have done different if i got the chance to create it. So i started looking different at everything. Rap albums, sports brands airplane companies etc.

I was making a lot of work but the typography that I could find on the internet did not ft well with my designs and illustrations. After getting deeper into the craft I discovered some dutch artists and graphic designers making their own letters to match their work. The way they made it connect with the with the rest of the visuals inspired me to start incorporating it in my work too. Now I feel my typography is one of my strongest points. Making a font has been on my bucket list ever since I felt comfortable with the typography I was pushing out and when I was asked by I Love Ugly with the opportunity to do this I was pretty excited to get this off the bucket list. 

What have you found hardest about getting into this area of design?
Finding out which application is the best and after that getting to know the app. The technical part of it all was the hardest part.

Looking back, is there anything you’d do differently?
Nothing in particular to be honest, It was a great learning process. Now i exactly know how fonts are made and am looking forward to make some more.

What advise do you have for anyone wanting to get into this area?
Just try to make something that is unique and your own. There are a lot of fonts out there, but give the letters your own twist so you can give the people something new to work with.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
In the studio as one of the grandmasters of minimalism doing allot of work with some of the greatest creatives and brands in the world. Creating different stuff for different mediums. I see myself eventually doing things like furniture design.

What can we expect to see from you in the future?
A lot of work with my friend and mentor Trobbies, A couple of expo’s, Fonts, a lot of artwork, prints, collaborations, apparel. A lot of things that interest me.