“I’m a craftsman and not an innovator,” claims David Farey. “I need a vehicle to be able to express my interpretation of a typeface.” While no one would dispute Farey’s ability as a type designer, it’s true that some of his best and most successful typefaces are based on the work of others. Perhaps Farey’s reason for feeling this way is because he gained his training in typeface design much as a craftsperson would – as an apprentice to an accomplished artisan.

Born in the Streatham district of London in 1943, Farey took a job in his teens that was supposed to train him in sign writing. He ended up running errands more than anything else, going between newspaper offices and studios around Fleet Street.

Farey’s mother worked as a cook in Soho pubs and restaurants. Her livelihood led the budding craftsman to try his hand at lettering pub signs and menus in 1960. Around that time, Letraset, the manufacturer of dry transfer lettering sheets, advertised for staff positions. Farey took a job at the company in 1961, although he continued sign writing and also painted house signs and numbers. The wood he painted on was “very rustic, sawn straight from the tree,” Farey recalls. “I enjoyed treating the wood and varnishing as much as the lettering, nearly always in a crude blackletter.”

At Letraset, Farey learned a process called stencil cutting. The technique is an extremely accurate method of cutting four-to-six-inch-high letters from Rubylith® photo masking film. Farey also learned to draw and design letters and eventually became the type design studio manager. “Letraset rescued me and I literally learned about alphabets, how they work from A to Z, and how they function,” Farey says.

Farey stayed at Letraset until 1971, when he left for a position at Alphabet Photosetting. Farey stayed there 10 years, taking on the combined responsibilities of working in sales and marketing and serving as the type design director. He left Alphabet Photosetting and opened Panache Photosetting in 1981, publishing many typefaces under the Panache label.