Curator Tour: Michael Doret Archive

Since the 1970s, Michael Doret has brought his unique words-as-images to a wide range of projects, from magazine covers to record covers, logos to typefaces, and much more. Letterform Archive holds a major part Michael’s archive, including rough-to-refined sketches, meticulous mechanicals and color studies, and other original artwork. Join Michael himself, along with the Archive’s Associate Curator Stephen Coles, for a tabletop tour of his work.

While you’re here, snag a copy of , Doret’s monograph hot off the press from Letterform Archive.

A graduate of the Cooper Union, Michael opened his design studio first in New York City and later in Hollywood. An eight-time winner of the New York Art Directors Club Silver Award, Michael is a specialist in logos and letterforms. His unique typographic vision blends elements of lettering, illustration and graphic design. The inspirations for his work come primarily from his early years growing up near the bright lights, signage, and brilliant colors of Brooklyn’s Coney Island, and later from such diverse sources as matchbook covers, theater marquees, enamel signs, and early-to-mid-20th-century packaging and ephemera.

In addition to designing many memorable covers for Time, Doret has designed album covers—from Rock and Roll Over for KISS to his Grammy Award–nominated design for the Squirrel Nut Zippers—and has created many famous works, including the logo for the New York Knicks, the Summer Harvest stamps for the USPS, the title treatment for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, and the classic poster for Simon and Garfunkel’s concert in Central Park. In the early 2000s, Doret branched out into the realm of font design by opening his digital foundry Alphabet Soup Type Founders. To date, he has released ten unique font designs.

Stephen “Stewf” Coles, Associate Curator & Editorial Director (he/him), joined the staff after serving on our Board of Directors since its inception. For over 20 years, he has been active in the type community, initially as a creative director at FontShop, and later as an independent consultant, connecting font makers with font users. Stephen wrote the book The Anatomy of Type and co-founded the influential websites Typographica and Fonts In Use. With his background in design and journalism, combined with an obsession for type history, Stephen is responsible for the online face and voice of the Archive, and shares the collection through the blog and other editorial projects. As a member of the curatorial team, he helps to shape the future of the collection. Stephen co-curated the Strikethrough exhibition.

Host or Publisher Letterform Archive