Travis Kochel Interview

Hey everybody. My name is Ashley, and I'm the social media manager for Extenses. And I'm here with Travis, the owner of Vectoral Type Foundry. We're gonna learn more about him, but we're also gonna chat about foundry search. You ask for it and is finally here, font freedom, right at your fingertips. Let's chat about a little bit about your experience as a type designer. Hi, and thanks for having me. Yeah. So I've been designing type bases for, I don't know, I guess, maybe twelve or thirteen years now. We started off releasing under scribble tone, where we were doing a lot of branding and graphic design web design, then we eventually started releasing our own type bases. And then recently, we have launched My my partner and I, Lizzie Gerson, we we launched a dedicated type foundry called Vectro, where we release It's just mostly just like our our own personal type aces, but we do have a few or one type a's from another designer as well. And then we also launched and run feature fonts where we release IN PROGRESS TIGHT FACES FROM PEOPLE ALL OVER OVER THE WORLD. NICE. SO TRAVIS, CAN YOU Tell us how you got into type design. Share that story with us. Sure. Yeah. I guess so I went to a design school typography was a really big component of the program, although we never really took a a type design course but we messed around with some modular, like, really crude type pieces, just like tracing and that kind of stuff. And then, That kind of like got my got me a little bit interested, but also just learning about the background of contemporary type designers, which I didn't really know was a thing. And then, we, shortly after school, Lizzie and I moved to New Zealand, and we had a lot Hi. And yeah. And then, I don't know why, but I guess, there was this type conference going on in Wellington, and we didn't have money to go, but it was just happening there and it was just kind of inspiring and pushed me a little bit further. And so I I don't know. I just kind of started learning about type design and started poking around and making my own typeface, and kind of just snowballed from there. And I guess I really enjoyed liking that very like that the practice of like being able to lock myself into a room and just work on something without having to deal with clients, I guess. I felt -- Yeah. -- was worrying. And I love hearing these stories about how it started and and where entrepreneurs end up now. I think a lot of type designers are they were at a point where maybe they couldn't afford to attend these massive conferences, and they figured it out. And now they look back, and they're like, I'm so glad that I I kept going because I have a ton of clients, and we're we're rocking and rolling. So congrats on that. And you said ten years? Ten plus years? I yeah. I mean, I think the first type a server released was in two thousand and ten or maybe two thousand yeah. Two thousand ten if they So it's been thirteen years since that was out. Yeah. I love that. Success is not built overnight. We have to remember So good good job for everything that you and your partner are doing with. Let's let's keep this rolling, Travis. So you've worked with brands from all over. Let's chat about some of your favorite pro projects. Let's see. I guess I mean, honestly, I So I guess there's kind of like the the pre Like most of our project projects are like with our client work when we were under scribble tone. And I guess, like, one that was kind of like p to type, like type design was Design Week, Portland. And and we we were involved with helping create the original branding and the website. And we we kinda chose to make a custom typeface for for design week, Portland, and then It it was just a really fun team to be a part of, and then that typeface itself kind of became became our it became kicker which we released on our own, but it also was kind of a big foundational piece towards starting future fonts where we are kind of giving them this kind of unfinished typeface not ready for a retail environment, but it was still really useful for them because we could just say, well, it's only got uppercase. Just be careful with it, and then we would, like, slowly build it out and and just like that process of, like, these these are still usable part useful to people even though they're not finished. And so, that kind of that that process was really inspirational towards us building future funds. Nice. Now I know you're not a workaholic like the rest of us. So what are some of your hobbies? When you're not working, what do you what do you do for fun. Yeah. I guess, so recently, I've been getting really into modular synthesizers analogs symmphocizers -- Mhmm. -- which has been really fun to kind of have something physical and, like, patching, like, cables and, like, trying to experiment and explore sounds, it's really kind of become a it's been very inspiring creatively, I guess. Like, it's just nice to have a creative outlet outside of work? Yeah. Yeah. And then I also go climbing a lot and snowboarding. So just like being out side. It's really really helpful to, like, kind of clear my mind and focus on figure out what's important. Yeah. It's good for thinking and It is good for thinking. I'm so glad you're taking out the time to do that. I know I've been to Portland. Just a handful of times with extensive. It seems just like a really cool place, a lot of outdoor activities. Yeah, it's a really, really fun city. It's a good balance of having a lot of really good creative community here, but then also easily getting out into nature and good access to mountains, which is, yeah, it's nice to have that balance. Yeah, I love that. So let's swing back into work mode. If you had to collaborate or wanted to collaborate with someone, who would that be? Like, so I mean, it probably just changes often. Like, I guess right now, I would be really interested in collaborating with some modular synthesizer makers and just making some custom type for them or some logo types, whatever. Okay. Cool. Cool. Do you have anything that you're working on currently that you can share with us? Any big projects or some things that you're excited about? Yeah. I've been really excited for this project. It's kind of been we've kind of like hinted at it here and there, but Google Funds commissioned us to create a typeface, and it's it's a variable kind of variable typeface and kind of inspired by Jokerman and all those really wild and like, weirdly decorative typefaces from the nineties. And so it's variable and, like, as you drag the variable slider like There's like all these dots and and dashes and, like, the letters mutate and it's yeah. It's it's been kind of Pretty close to done for the past, like, a year or two. We've just been kind of waiting on these final stages, and hopefully, it'll be out in the next month or so. Nice. Okay. You've been busy. I love this. I wanna ask you one more question. Is there any advice that you would give to any type designers out there, you know, extensive. We are true advocates for entrepreneurship and supporting small businesses. So what advice would you give someone wanting to tap into this industry? Just explore, like, make a lot of typefaces, make don't be afraid to make mistakes. Like, even even experienced designers will never like, there's always mistakes in their work, and they're always trying to push stuff. And there's a lot of I feel like a lot of pressure in the industry to like be perfect about everything. And I think just try, like, just make stuff, learn from it, and then move on, make another type base, learn from it, and just keep trying to get better. Keep trying to get better. That's that's really all you can do. Thank you for that, Travis, and thank you for joining us today, Travis. Thanks so much for having me.