Chicago-based Bianca Idrovo has a way with words — just not the way you might think. She’s an artist, who specializes in letter design, both drawn and fantastically painted. Get to know her here.

The art bug bit when…
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment when I knew I wanted to be an artist. Any art form has always been extremely intriguing to me and I’ve always had the desire to dabble in everything. I’ve tried different things like photography and music, which were ultimate fails. It wasn’t until college when I discovered I had a huge fondness for typography and layout design. I’ve just sort of evolved from there.

My very first art love…
There are so many influential artists. But a couple artists who have been super inspiring to me are Raul Alejandro and Gemma O’Brien.

My favorite font…
I haven’t been working with fonts a lot lately. But Franklin Gothic has always been a favorite of mine. It just always works for little and large bodies of text.

I am drawn to letter design because…
The possibilities are endless. There are a lot of “rules” within design, especially with typography. But when you fully understand the rules and break them in just the right ways, it can make for some awesome, beautiful work.

And how it became my specialty…
I think I jumped into hand lettering right before it became a craze. Just practiced on my downtime, had some fun with it. I think I established the emotional connection with the art form when my dad passed away because it was extremely therapeutic for me. From then on it was second nature; it felt weird not to make a piece or dabble in a project every day. I guess I’ve grown into it.

My preferred medium/tools…
That’s a tough one for sure. Every medium has something different to offer for every piece I do. But a tool that will never fail me is a pencil.

When I get the artist equivalent of writer’s block…
I take my dog for a walk and/or get the tunes going. It all comes back eventually. Breaks are needed.

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