JOEPIE ART
When I was a kid, my dad started calling me JOEPIE. My middle name is Joseph, and I was a fat child with a serious love for pie, so it made sense. Fast forward a few years, and that childhood nickname took on a whole new life.
At the time, I was working for a brewery and was responsible for organizing three art shows a month at different tasting rooms. It was a massive task, and things didn’t always go smoothly. Artists would sometimes drop out at the last minute or struggle to fill the gallery walls. One month, I found myself in a bit of a bind, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I figured, why not be the artist for once? But instead of telling my coworkers, I kept it under wraps. I created an alias—JOEPIE—and dove headfirst into the project. In just a few weeks, I pulled together an entire series of artwork to fill the gallery spot. That’s how the JOEPIE style and brand were born.
What started as a fun, spontaneous project has since become a creative outlet for me. JOEPIE is where I let my little bursts of inspiration live, where I experiment and play without overthinking it. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best ideas come from just diving in and seeing what happens.
TYPE AND TYPOS
I stumbled upon an old photo of Highway 101 in Encinitas from the 1940s, and one thing immediately caught my eye—a vintage neon sign for a business called Encinitas Hardware. The sign had this amazing, classic vibe, and I was totally drawn to the style of the lettering.
There were just enough characters on that sign for me to start piecing together the rules of a typeface. I was so inspired by the look and feel of it that I decided to expand the alphabet and create an entire font around it. That little spark of creativity led me down a new path, and before I knew it, I had created several more fonts.
What started as a side project quickly turned into a skill I find myself using surprisingly often. Whether it's for branding, design projects, or just for fun, font design has become a go-to tool in my creative toolkit. And it all began with that one old photo and a neon sign that sparked an idea.
