Jason Jones began studying mathmatics at university but soon realised that he’d rather apply his love for puzzles and problem solving to the creative field. The Californian designer works for creative studio, JLoop by day, but has recently showcased his knack for creating fonts, as he was the winner of American blog, Design*Sponge’s Design Your Own Alphabet Contest for his creative submission, Skunkling.

Besides thinking about his next font, Jason is currently working on wallet designs and is pondering how he can make a pair of letterpressed shoes.

Hi Jason, please can you give us a brief background of how you got into the creative industry.
I like puzzles and problem solving. I studied Maths for one quarter in college. It didn’t fit me. I knew I had a natural affinity for design and found that I could use my creativity to solve problems as well.

After I graduated from college, I found work freelancing and a few random in-house design jobs. After a couple years of job-hopping, I found a company I loved and am working with now. My favorite part of working in the creative industry is getting to collaborate with some really talented people.

You must have a favourite font… please reveal?
The list is ever-changing, but my current top five is:
Archer
Gotham
Cyclone
Hellenic Wide
Eloquent Pro

You were the winner of Design*Sponge’s ‘Design Your Own Alphabet Contest’. Where did the idea for your winning font, Skunkling come from?
My wife and I recently had our first child and I’ve been surrounded by baby toys and children’s books. I wanted to design something for my son Liam; something that was fun and childish.

Also, my wife and I love to hike. When we were dating in college, we were on a long hike when we accidentally invaded a momma skunk’s territory. For the sake of trying to keep chivalry alive, I jumped in front of my wife and the skunk sprayed me directly in my eyes. I still smell phantom scents of it’s spray now and then, and even though the smell makes me nauseous, I have been somewhat obsessed with skunks ever since.

Can you talk us through the steps of creating Skunkling?
Sure. I started with a pencil and some paper. I think I doodled the skunk illustration first which led to my idea for a couple of the letters. At that point, I could picture most of the letters in my head so I jumped into Illustrator and started with a capital A. Then I designed the lower case g. It’s my favorite letter so I wanted to make sure it would be a good one. Then I went back to a capital B and just worked my way through the alphabet. I had some spare time before the deadline so I designed the numbers and some basic punctuation too. Then I had some more time left over so I got out some of the old children’s books I’ve been picking up at thrift stores and got some inspiration for a color palette and applied it throughout my typeface.

Now I am in what I will call the ‘post-contest phase’ of creating Skunkling and I am currently working on producing the font using a beta version of the Glyphs software from George Seifert of Germany.

Have you created any other fonts – has winning the competition inspired you to create more?
I have created one other font. It is derived from a hand lettering style I developed over time. I try to incorporate hand-lettering into my work when possible. It adds a unique and pleasantly flawed aspect that makes it more personal. I wanted to have a typeface that had same appeal.

I called it Ghost League and actually entered it into the Design*Sponge contest too, but it didn’t make it as far as Skunkling. You can download it here.

And to answer the second part of your question I would say yes, I am more motivated now.

What other type of projects do you find yourself working on?
I recently worked on a children’s book with my good friend Danny Roberts of Igor + André and Sophie Ward of Paper Castle Press. This is actually one of the first places I started developing the Ghost League font I mentioned before. Danny illustrated the book and envisioned every word in the story being hand-lettered. I was happy to take on the challenge and now I would love to keep working on children’s books. It was so much fun!

What can we expect from you next?
I’ve always wanted to design a pair of shoes. Do you know anyone that can help me out with that? I would also love to own a letterpress. Maybe I’ll make some letterpressed shoes!

You can count on seeing is some work I’m doing with some very talented Seamsters. I have a couple of very creative friends that make handmade wallets and bags. I just did the branding for one of them, Strawfoot Handmade, and maybe he’ll invite me back for another project soon. I’m also working on a couple of really cool wallet designs for Whodini Handmade that I’m excited about.

If you want to see what I am working on in the future please go check out jloop.com and jasonmarkjones.com.

@jasonmarkjones

All images copyright Jason Jones.