Hey there!
Glad you’re here.
I’m Michelle, a Minneapolis-based type designer, lettering artist, and educator.
My work is currently focused on custom type, fonts, and vector lettering projects for clients in a variety of industries. Recent clients include The State of Minnesota, Anthropologie, Trader Joes, The Bookish Box, and Shapco Printing.
I’ve have taught typography at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design since 2024. My design and teaching practices inform each other: teaching keeps me fluid and evolving, and design keeps my curiosity sharp.
I’m curious, detail-driven, entrepreneurial and adaptable — equally at ease working independently or as part of a team. Prior to 2024, I worked as an art director and graphic designer for small to mid-sized firms, leading and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams across a range of projects and media, from web to print to motion graphics.
If you are a studio, agency, or brand and need a hand with custom type or logos, fonts, or lettering, get in touch!
Teaching
Since Spring 2025, I’ve led a graduate-level typography class in the MA program at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD). Since 2024, I’ve developed and taught workshops for MCAD Continuing Education centered on decorative vector type and intermediate lettering skills, including:
70s Lettering In Illustrator — Authentic ‘of the era’ inspired decorative techniques for vector type
Botanical Type in Illustrator — Botanical-themed decorative techniques for vector type in Illustrator
Decorative Type in Illustrator — Decorative basics for vector lettering
Hand-Lettered Logo — a four-part Illustrator workshop on logo design via calligraphy and advanced sketching and vectoring techniques
Across all my classes, I emphasize historical context and experimentation with calligraphy and sketching — encouraging students to extract relevant type DNA from history to shape their own typography voices and add richness to their work.
I usually post about classes on Instagram and LinkedIn. Follow me there to be notified about open or new class offerings.
Tools for Designers
I love calligraphy, but hate carrying around ink, brushes and paper for all the obvious, messy bulky reasons. I’ve been making custom calligraphic brush sets for myself since I first got an iPad pro in 2017.
In 2025 I launched the Fabuletters Procreate Brush Sets, making an important part of my personal type-making toolset available to designers everywhere. Each unique brushset is crafted to help you replicate specific types of calligraphy — the correct pen angles are already informed in brush construction. So you can do calligraphy, make lettering, or even do your own letterform R&D, on your iPad, anytime, anywhere. The Fabuletters Brush Set family is available in my shop. The selection currently includes Blackletter, Gothic, Uncial and Devanagari — more sets, styles and bundles coming soon!
Random Fun Facts
It’s True. I’m a Type Nerd — 100% certified!
I made the leap from major type nerd to certified type nerd in 2021, when I earned a certificate in Typeface Design in the Type@Cooper Condensed Program.
My toxic trait? Hmm, probably my undergrad in Economics. After a stint in finance and consulting, I returned to my creative roots with a Graphic Design certificate from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD) in 2014, and followed up in 2019 with a Master of Arts. (I now teach in the program I graduated from, and yes, it does make me misty!)
A Minneapolis-based Design Studio
My studio is in South Minneapolis, very close to downtown . My bulldog, Walter Cronkite, is a great studio partner, despite our conflicting agendas. Walter feels the studio has too many books and pens, and not enough snacks. (He’s not wrong, there are quite a lot of dusty old type specimens and various obscure tomes piled along side buckets of pens, ink and markers.)
Ampersand-er Extraordinaire, since 2019!
Do you love ampersands, too? I began drawing illustrated ampersands in 2019, and posting them on Instagram. The project is called The Ampersand Storm. My goal for this project is to make 1,000 ampersands. There are over 300, and counting!
I love to make risoprints and stickers of my ampersands (like this hologram foil one). If this kind of thing is your jam, be sure to hop on the mailing list to get first crack at my next release of ampersand goodies!
Let’s chat.
Open for new projects - let’s talk about yours!