Building on decades of experience as a designer of fonts for comic books, video games, TV shows and movies, John Roshell’s Swell Type takes inspiration from the real-world signs and scenery of California to build fun, friendly, functional fonts for your graphic design and branding projects.
Swell Type fonts are available at
Latest Projects
In the Works
Design Hero: Fred Gehrke, creator of the first football helmet logo
I’m finishing up a new font, and decided to test it out on social media by telling the story of one of my first design heroes: Fred Gehrke, who designed the first football helmet logo. He’s a hero in my mind because he saw a cool possibility where nobody else did, and then just went […]
Painting letters on the high school walls
I took some time off this week from making letters onscreen to make some on walls! At the end of last school year, my son’s high school principal asked if I could help liven up the campus over the summer with some signs to help new (and even current) students to find their way around […]
JETLAB is leaving the launch pad in 3…2…1…
This font started out exactly a year ago as a “proof of concept” — a font I built just to see if it could be done. The initial test told me yes! But since then, it’s proven nearly impossible to finish. Every time I hit a wall, I’d put it aside and work on something […]