Celebrating a Decade of Creativity, Design & Letterforms

Happy Tenth Anniversary!

It’s November 2024, and I’m writing this article to celebrate my own 10th anniversary as an independent creative business of one.

This marks a huge milestone for me, and I want to make sure I celebrate it in the best possible company, you. I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you and express my gratitude for all of it: The Good, The Bad, The Great, The Ugly, and everything else in between.

Ultimately, this journey is not just about my creative outcomes, but about what I’ve learned and who I’ve become after a decade of dancing with creativity and letterforms.



Here’s how it all started— I hope you’ll enjoy the ride!

Melbourne, January 2014

After two years working full-time as a remote textile designer for a company based in Inner Mongolia, I lost my job in January 2014. There was no prior notice—no warning signs, no red flags, nothing at all. In fact, I thought everything was going well, especially since one of our clients, Massimo Dutti, had just announced that one of our designs was their multinational best-selling scarf for 2013.

Between November 2011 and December 2013, alongside my business partner and fashion designer Laura Piera, we designed four hundred twenty-three textiles.

In mid-January 2014, a short email appeared in my inbox, saying something like, “Thank you very much for all your hard work; we really appreciate it. We cannot keep you in our books any longer. Thanks for your collaboration, and Happy Chinese New Year.”



Before this textile design role, I had studied a Postgraduate Course in Advanced Typography, which I loved. During that course, I met one of the most influential people in my career up to that point, my teacher Laura Meseguer.

In 2012, I used all my holidays for the year to move to New York City for five weeks and study a Condensed Program in Type Design at Type@Cooper. During my time studying typeface design, I discovered that releasing a font was a very long process. This was challenging for me, as I knew three things about my workflow and interests:

1. Unreasonable two-to-three-day turnaround deadlines were undesirable. They forced me to work under too much pressure, jeopardizing the quality of the work.
2. Projects lasting longer than three months became very challenging, as I would lose focus and efficiency.
3. I was falling in love with lettering, inspired by the work of Alex Trochut, Gemma O’Brien, and Ken Barber.

The day after I lost my full-time job, I returned to my co-working space to start my regular 10-hour workday, but this time, with nothing in my inbox. So, I designed my ideal briefs: two-to-four-week projects that combined my current skills of writing letters, drawing type, and illustrating, resulting in my first lettering piece—a tribute to Jan Tschichold.



During the first six months of 2014, my partner supported me financially, and I squeezed every minute of it, exploring, playing, and creating self-generated work for the first time in my life. I began to exercise my own voice and pay attention to things that deeply resonated with me.

Three months later, I created my first illustrated cocktail artwork, titled “Bloody Maria,” featuring a Bloody Mary. I produced a limited edition, and sold the first one at a group exhibition in Melbourne. Three more copies were sent to the “Pick Me Up London” art show, and they sold immediately.

At the same time, my partner opened Rotson Studios, a creative co-working space in the heart of Fitzroy (Naarm, Melbourne), where sixteen designers became a close-knit family for us in the first few years. I handled the naming, logo design, and created my first mural inside the space.

Every morning, one hour before opening my laptop, I practiced calligraphy as a mindful creative exercise, sharpening my eyes and learning to see. Other graphic designers in the co-working space began to show interest in my practice, eventually asking me if I could teach them.

In May 2014, I hosted my first six-week calligraphy course at Rotson Studios, teaching in English for the first time. After the first class, I realised the following:

• I loved the experience, and it energised me more than it exhausted me.
• It perfectly balanced my solitary workdays with the social aspect of teaching and hosting people.
• I was learning a lot by teaching.
• I remembered my father’s stories about teaching and the immense satisfaction it gave him, and I immediately understood what he had talked about for eight years.
• I discovered a new side of myself, one I had not known before, and I loved it.