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
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 […]
A new year in the Goodland
Lately I’ve been on an epic fontsploration of the signs, letters & historic type of Goleta, the community just north of Santa Barbara, for a font I’ve been wanting to make since long before I started Swell Type. Way back in 2008, I snapped these pictures of some wonderful painted block lettering on the side […]