Head of his eponymous studio, Kevin is the creative director and design lead for all Kevin Cantrell Studio and Satellite Agency client projects. Kevin has a deep understanding and love of lettering and typographical aesthetics. He earned BFA in Graphic Design from Brigham Young University, 2008 and soon established his signature typographic aesthetic with over a decade of experience in luxury and hospitality industries.
He has worked with clients such as Nike, Putnam, M&RL, Neenah Paper, Fetcham Park (UK), Harvard University, Princeton University, Phillips Exeter Academy, Cottonhouse Hotel (Barcelona), Tavern on the Green, Tom’s Town, UNICEF, and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts Design and Typography Annuals, Graphis, Type Directors Club, Print Regional Design Annual, the One Show. Kevin was named one of Print Magazine’s 20 under 30 New Visual Artists 2014 and is an Art Director’s Club (ADC) Young Gun 12. In 2019 he was awarded Best-of-Typography from the ADC annual. In his free time, Kevin enjoys running half-marathons, spartans, or spending time with his wife and five kids in the mountains of Utah.
Images courtesy of Kevin Cantrell Studio
Your work is defined by a very consistent personal aesthetic, strongly inspired by Victorian and other pre-modern decorative styles. Is the reference to these a conscious statement against modernist aesthetics or only a matter of personal taste? How does this relate to the dominant credo of the design industry, which oscillates between modernist “timeless” desires and fleeting “trendy” design styles?
I think it’s mostly a matter of personal taste and preference. I try to design brands that are enduring and always try to balance modernity with classic and historic references. I believe there is a reason we look back on many of the historical pieces with admiration: because they have qualities that are enduring. If there’s one thing I think I really try not to do in my work, it’s attempt something that is in vogue. Notwithstanding, for me on branding projects, style always conforms to subject matter and concept. My brands are predominantly idea driven. Good ideas and exceptional craftsmanship last. I try for both.
Your designs often involve the tactile experience of final products as well as the visual one, with voluptuous finishing print techniques (from gold foil to embossing), making any designer's hands itch. Is the tactile experience central to your work philosophy?
With so much of our experience now tilting towards digital experiences, many of them useful and good, I think there is importance to still have an opulent tactile experience with luxury goods. People value objects imbued with quality. Beautiful printing paired with beautiful materials always feel luxurious and valuable. I try to work with brands that value quality.
"People value objects imbued with quality. Beautiful printing paired with beautiful materials always feel luxurious and valuable"
How does your approach translate in the field of digital visual communication? Did new technologies bring any new challenge, style, or change in your creative process?
I do not believe I could execute many of my ornate and complex compositions with past tools. I honestly don't know if I have the patience for it. There are no shortcuts to great craftsmanship, but new technologies and tools have facilitated these types of designs so they are faster to realize than in years past. I can create far more complex and experimental compositions now because of new tools that enable this type of exploration, as well as the precision which may not have been possible by even the sturdiest of hands in the past.
Your work is heavily centred sits in the middle between hand-lettering, illustration and type design. Can you tell us more about your process of designing letters, and your relation with the contemporary typeface design scene?
Ultimately, everything is a pattern. Brands are patterns or system based. Lettering and type design are seemingly contradictory in this regard because the former is system based while the latter is illustration based. However, with technology becoming so sophisticated, it’s really blurring that line enabling type design to take on more of an illustrative aesthetic. Personally, I find this incredibly exciting to see.
Most of my work is branding. I try to systemize my lettering and try to create display typefaces that feel more bespoke than typical workhorse typefaces in an attempt to blur that line. Many of my logotypes include various compositions: diagonal, center-curved, straight-vertical, and straight-horizontal options. Why I create these variations is that it can give the appearance of bespoke lettered pieces when applied across myriad brand touch-points. It does create extensive brand guides to explain the to-dos and do-nots for such elaborate systems, but usually we provide enough examples and templates that brands can work well enough with it.
This gives the appearance of a bespoke, lettered aesthetic that is ultimately systemized to work within a brand. I try to pair these bespoke compositional tools with more workhorse typefaces. It also requires a balance between the two: the bespoke display typeface, or various lettered logotypes, need to pair with a more utilitarian typeface that has a more modest personality. Otherwise there is little hierarchy and the workhorse typeface can dilute the value of the former.
I think this combination of custom type with more system-based components is becoming more standard.
This interview is part of the Type Trends 2023 Lookbook / Vol 5: The counterspaces – Typography in the Age of Black Swans
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