Meet the Maker: Fonted

We’re so excited to introduce one of our amazing members from our Welsh Makers Community in this Meet the Maker series. Meet Julie from Fonted, creating unique typographic art and photographic letter prints, turning letters from everyday signage into stunning wall art.

At Byw, we love sharing the stories behind the Welsh gifts and locally made products you’ll find on our site. By shopping small and supporting Welsh makers like Julie, you’re helping them keep doing what they love and we couldn’t be happier about it!
We caught up with Julie to hear all about their journey and what inspires their work.

Tell us a bit about your background, how did your creative journey begin?

I suppose it all began when I was a wedding photographer back in the day - what I loved about the images that I captured over the course of the day was the detail...those largely unseen bits and pieces that can be lost through the 'bigger picture' happening during the day.

What inspired you to launch Fonted?

It’s that love of the beautiful detail that often goes unseen. With Fonted in mind, it's the stunning architecture and signage that is often situated above our eye-line as we're going about our day to day lives when racing around our high streets and towns. We ran a photographic shop and studio in Leamington Spa in the early 2000's, our large windows overlooked a pub called The Prince of Wales which had the most exquisite, detailed font. Photographs were taken - the passion began!!

What does a typical day look like for you when you’re working on your business?

I will initially catch up with orders placed overnight from various online platforms that we feature on, so printing, packaging and planning a trip to the post office is the first part of the day. A coffee and instagram post/story will then take place (not every day - I'm not as consistent as I should be!) Depending on whether there are images to be edited this would then dictate whether or not a section of the day is spent working in photoshop. Once images are edited and letters become 'useable' then phraseology and new artwork will be worked on.

Where do you find all your inspiration for your artwork?

Once an area of the country has been photographed then we would be researching dialect and vernacular from that particular region, with a view to creating word art with the font captured. Artisan markets that I attend are also a great source of inspiration - it seems that the great British public are all fiercely proud of their roots and where they live and are very happy to share their stories of jargon, lingo and local vernacular!

What’s one of your proudest moments since starting Fonted?

After coming out of lock-down we decided to give Fonted a 'soft-launch' at a local Christmas Fair. Not everything sold, so on a whim I called in to the Art Gallery in our town to show our artwork to the creative director. A few months later we had a dedicated 'spot-light' feature wall to exhibit Fonted for three months. Our prints are still stocked by the Gallery today.

Do you have a favourite design or collection that holds a special meaning?

This is a hard one to answer! Each and every region, town or city that we visit rewards us with something very special! Discovering that the RED LION in The Potteries, with its huge, red, 1960's letters, was the pub where a young Robbie Williams grew up...

Discovering the stunning mosaic in Victoria Station in Manchester which spells out BOOKSTALL, REFRESHMENTS and GRILL ROOM.

Discovering that all of the font from Edinburgh, when seen as a group, looks like the colours in a kilt.

Realising that the beautiful tiles which spell out PEVERIL OF THE PEAK, a small historic pub which is a Mancunian institution, is so well known and that so many people at market tell me of the memories they have of it!

And realising that the font we photograph is captured forever, despite the fact it doesn't remain in place forever, has a special meaning. A 1950's Milk Bar in a small village nearby is now a dog grooming parlour and has had its original signage removed since we photographed it. The list goes on - I shall stop!!!

It’s always exciting to see your new products, what plans have you got for the future?

New products for 2026....we'll be so excited to share these!! We've just returned from a three day trip to Paris, which was primarily to gather font. The city didn't disappoint and I'm so pleased with what we managed to capture. The light was beautiful, the weather was fabulous and the whole collection will be fantastique!

In March we shall be attending our first Trade Show so we shall be interested to see what happens as a result of this.

Cardiff (the weather prevented our planned trip there last year), Glasgow and Belfast are all on the 'to do' list for this year as well as more Premier League football clubs.

Busy year here we come! Bring it on!