Timeouts are lightning-quick interviews. Five questions to help you get to know the players holding court at Dribbble. Many thanks to Ryan for being today’s interviewee.
Who are you? Let us know where you hail from and what you do.
My name’s Ryan Hamrick, and I’m a letterer, designer, writer and speaker based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I draw letters for a living for use in branding, apparel, advertising and just about anything else. I’m also the founder and design partner of the best-selling Twitter app on the BlackBerry platform, Blaq.
What are you working on?
I’m just now wrapping up a few awesome advertising projects with Target, Capital One and Samsung. I’ve always got a few branding gigs going on at any given time, but aside from that, I have a ton of ideas for a streetwear brand that I hope to have a little more time to develop now.
Choose a favorite shot of yours. Why is it a favorite?
I guess if I had to choose one, I’d go with the fun little GIF I put together of me lettering “#Bucketlist” for the Capital One project. If it’s not apparent from a quick look through my profile, I like to try to throw out tips here and there on how I do my work.
Being self-taught, I went through countless hours of trial and error, and while looking back I think I’m happy for that, I always feel like if I can save someone else a little time and frustration, why wouldn’t I?
Studying videos of how others used speed and pressure to execute lettering pieces like this was always one of the more helpful things for me, so I was glad to be able to do one of my own.
Tell us about your setup. What tools did you use to create the shot (e.g. hardware, software, pens, paper, blowtorch)?
I always told myself that if I were ever honored with a Dribbble Timeout feature, I’d have done something cool as shit with a blowtorch by then and be ready for this question. I want you to know that if I owned a blowtorch right now, I’d not be sending an answer to this one until I came up with something.
Instead, I just have a pretty basic setup. Aside from my computers, tablet and art supplies, everything else was either free, made by me, or purchased from IKEA for a total of about $100. The specific brush pen I used in the Bucketlist shot was a Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pen on the cheap white Staples printer paper I use 99% of the time.
Choose a favorite shot from another Player. Why do you dig it?
Oh man, this is so tough. To make this meaningful, I’m going to have to go with one of the first pieces I remember seeing that _really _made me decide to try my hand at lettering a couple of years ago. The New York Skateboard shot from my buddy Simon Ålander just made me want to lock myself in a room and not come out again until I had matched his skill. It’s almost two years later now, and I’ve come out for food and water a couple times, but I think I’m finally starting get somewhat close.
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