Dear Reader,

What does it mean to be “inspired by” someone or something?

True inspiration is never about copying. Rather, inspiration is a guiding force that ignites something unique inside of us: it’s a feeling of being energized and motivated by a visual language or a way of thinking. 

 Inspiration can come from a person, an object or even sunlight dancing across the room. We can be inspired by the weight of history or we can be inspired by a fleeting moment.

Within this issue, you’ll meet designers, artists and craftspeople who are inspired by many things. You’ll see their original spark of inspiration and its results. Throughout, type design and the creation of letterforms is a recurring motif—demonstrating that even something as ubiquitous as the alphabet and the seemingly predictable forms of letters is open to creative reinterpretation and revival, in fact, creating a cycle of renewable and sustainable inspiration.

I hope you will be inspired by this issue of UPPERCASE magazine. I invite you to take that feeling and do something with it. Because it’s what we do with our inspiration that matters most.

-Janine Vangool
publisher / editor / designer