About Ian

Ian Brignell is a lettering, logo and font designer. His award-winning work is characterized by elegance and design breadth. His design impact on many of America’s most iconic brands is remarkable.

Best of all, Ian loves what he does and he gets to do it everyday.

Ian Brignell’s logo designs include Budweiser, Bud Light, Smirnoff, Miller High Life, Telefonica, Harvard, Western, Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Duracell, Dove, Vaseline, Burger King, Hunt’s, Bauer, Harvey’s, Shaw, ChapStick, Playtex, Estèe Lauder Pleasures, CIBC, Chapters, Swiss Chalet, Merck, Leffe, Hershey’s, Bigelow, Hoegaarden , Barrick, Crown Royal – the list goes on and on.

Ian has designed custom fonts for Budweiser (Bud Bold and Bud Crafted), Coke’s Share-a-Coke campaign (the YOU font), Bell (Slim), Shaw (Bold), Chesterfield cigarettes and Naturalizer, among others.

For Ian, it all started a long, time ago…

“It may sound strange, but it all began for me in grade 4 during reading class. I remember being bored with the book I was supposed to read, and my mind wandered until it was struck by an idea. I decided to sharpen my pencil as much as I could and then I attempted to duplicate, size-as, the 16 point century type that was on the page before me.”

In high school Ian studied art and calligraphy. Then he found a copy of The Speedball Textbook by Ross F. Georges. The rest is history.

IB Type is a passion project.

Some background: Ian studied graphic design at Sheridan College in Toronto, Canada (grad 1982). He began his own graphic design firm, ran it for three years then closed shop because he wanted to see the world. An inveterate traveler, Ian ended up living and working in London, England. He returned to Canada in 1988 and founded Ian Brignell Lettering Design. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Catherine O’Toole, and their two sons.

You can listen to this interview, conducted by Dan Cederholm, co-founder of Dribbble.

You can read this interview, by Ian Clarke from HeyThere.ca