The Typecast: Grow Your Art Business
Dear hand letterers, designers, and artists of all sorts—despite what your grandma thinks, we know there’s a whole lot more to what you do than just “drawing pretty pictures.” This podcast, hosted by Katie Johnson and Ilana Griffo of Goodtype, is about what it *really* means to be a working creative. From finding clients to pricing your work and nerding the heck out about kerning, we’re covering everything that goes into building a successful and sustainable business around your passion.
And we’re not just doing it alone! We’ll be tapping some of your current (and soon-to-be) favorite artists for inspiration, insight, and laughs. We’re big on giving takeaways that you can actually put into action, and we’re even bigger on having a good time while we do it. Tune into the Typecast twice a month for a tittle-ating time (yep, we’re gonna type-pun your face off), and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review so we can show our moms how famous we are!
The Typecast: Grow Your Art Business
What If You Built a Design Studio With No Rules? with Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz | The Typecast Episode 67
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What happens when a journalist from Venezuela becomes a self-taught designer, typeface foundry founder, and curator of one of the most ambitious graphic design exhibitions in recent memory? You get Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz, and our conversation with him does not disappoint.
Lope is a partner and project lead at In-House International, a design studio and typeface foundry. He’s also a TED Fellow, a Knight Fellow at Stanford, and the curator behind One Hundred Points.
In this episode, we dig into what it actually looks like to build a creative practice rooted in curiosity and systems–not just style. Lope shares his take on design rules (and whether you should bother learning them) and how his journalism background still shapes every creative decision he makes. We also get into the realities of working with nonprofits, font piracy, and how he pulled off a massive exhibition without taking a sabbatical.
All that and more when you listen to this episode:
- How Lope went from journalist to publisher to self-taught designer and typeface founder
- Why being self-taught may actually be a creative advantage
- His philosophy on design rules, systems, and building a practice around curiosity
- The studio structure at In-House International
- The truth about font piracy and typeface licensing
- How One Hundred Points came to be and why he thinks every designer should participate in an exhibition
- Tips for funding a creative exhibition through sponsorships
- The “Alphabet of Tomorrow” talk at South by Southwest
Connect with Lope
- In-House International: weareinhouse.com
- Instagram: weareinhouse
- One Hundred Points Exhibition: onehundredpoints.org
Mentioned in this episode:
- Run Studio Run https://nopicnicpress.com/shop/run-studio-run
- South by Southwest, “Alphabet of Tomorrow” talk, March 18, 2026 https://schedule.sxsw.com/events/PP1150035
- Follow Your Art by Katie Johnson & Ilana Griffo (book releasing March 17th!) https://goodtype.us/follow-your-art-book
- Book Launch Event @ Roommate Collective at Springdale General, Austin: March 18th, 5-8pm
- Tactical Guide to Sponsorship PDF
Connect with Katie & Ilana from Goodtype
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Grab your tea, coffee, or drink of choice, kick back, and let's get down to business!