Typism Member—Joke Wijn

Our third featured Typism member for 2022 is Joke Wijn, a Lettering Designer based in Roermond, the Netherlands who started her creative side hustle called ‘The Green Nib’, in January 2020.

Joke is passionate about lettering and in particular creating motivational quotes about mental health, personal development and anything vegan. She is also a big lover of tattoos and all things ink!

How did you start out as a lettering artist or designer?

I have been lettering ever since I was 12. Mostly as a hobby and a way to relax and unwind. Throughout the years, I kept lettering, participating in several (online) lettering challenges and making cards, posters and labels.

Friends and family started to give me custom jobs and this grew into more than just a hobby so I started my lettering studio ‘The Green Nib’. I kept on lettering, practising and taking courses to improve my skills.

How do you hone and refine your skills?

I practice a lot, I take various courses, and I have set my own lettering challenge (52 Weeks of Lettering) so I keep my lettering juices flowing at least once a week and try out different techniques, materials and tools. I watch a lot of videos and read a lot of books about lettering.

I also look at what others are doing. There are so many amazing lettering artists. It is all very inspiring and—admittedly—a little bit daunting too, sometimes (hello imposter syndrome). But we can all learn from each other and seeing what others create is just fantastic. The lettering community is the best. I love how many wonderful people I have met and how encouraging everybody is.

What's the best advice or tip you've received so far on your lettering journey?

It’s actually from episode two from the Typism podcast that really helps: “Confidence comes with time and experience.” (I think it was Jasmine Holmes who said this), in combination with “Focus on you” (advice from my business coach Mye de Leon) and “just have fun” (many people keep saying this, which I think is really important).

Tell us about your creative habits. Do you have any daily rituals?

I love sitting on the sofa with my iPad or my notebook and pencil and sketching away while watching Netflix. Walking outside also really clears my brain and makes space for my creative juices. I try to walk daily but must admit that this is not always the case. Whenever I hear a quote I really like or want to letter, I write it on my list of ‘Things to letter’, so that I always have something to create, even when I’m not feeling that creative.

I then look through some books and other reference materials for a style I want to try, write the sentence out, sketch it roughly and refine it. I don’t have a lot of time each day so I schedule lettering practice and my own lettering challenge keeps me accountable to letter weekly.

Tell us about your top lettering projects so far

In 2021, I started my own 52 Weeks of Lettering challenge, lettering once a week for 52 weeks.

This was a way for me to keep my lettering juices flowing and to try out different styles, techniques and materials/tools. I love experimenting and seeing how I progressed. It was also a good way to realize what I liked and what was not really my cup of tea.

My love for drawing with pencil blossomed again but I also enjoyed lettering on the iPad a lot! I love both analog and digital.

Below are a few pieces of the series that I enjoyed making. In February of 2021, I was asked to do a motivational mural in a home gym (a.k.a. garage).

This was a job to my heart’s content. I loved exploring the sketching phase, collaborating with the client and showing her through thumbnails and mock-ups what it would look like. Painting the actual mural was a blast as well and I learned so much about brush control, paint and design. But the best of all was the client who enjoys working out in her home gym now. Another project I had a lot of fun creating, was a set of motivational cards for a coach to send to her coaches in her program.

The subject is very close to me since I am a firm believer in supporting each other and creating mental health awareness. The client and I worked very closely together which resulted in cards that were really ours and we are both very proud of them. Working with type in a lettering kind of way and improving my vectorizing skills (something that has been on my wish list for a very long time) opened up my lettering toolbox even more. Everything really came together in this project.

What are your time and energy management strategies?

This is a tricky one because I feel that time and energy are precisely the two things you can never have enough of.

What I’ve noticed is that sleep is super important. Little to no sleep impacts my joy and creativity immediately, so I try to go to bed at the same time each night and wake up around the same time in the morning. My phone is on silent and I put on some nice relaxing tunes.

During the day, I take a short walk outside around lunchtime so I can get some fresh air and my brain is away from screens. I time block similar tasks and set an alarm for 45 minutes. Then, I get off of my chair, do some air squats or shake my legs, to keep the blood pumping because I sit a lot. When it comes to planning, I always try to schedule twice as much time as I think I need.

I try to lessen the number of things I want to do but as a multipotentialite, I have so many interests and things I want to do, I’m always running out of time ><. I also have a hard time prioritizing things because I usually think everything is important so I keep a priority matrix in mind: what are the top 3–5 things that need to be done today, what needs to be done this week and what can be skipped? It’s challenging but I see every day as another opportunity to learn.

Also, with my business coaching, we have GSD—Getting Things Done—calls where we set our intention for a specific set of hours and work together. At the end of the call, we do a review of what we managed to get done.

This really helps in getting into that work mode! And remember to check in with yourself: when you’re doing something, how is your body reacting? Are you smiling? Are you feeling a little low? That way, you can learn to recognize what truly energizes you and what makes you happy (and what doesn’t). It’s all about energy in versus energy out.

What is your favourite aspect of the Typism membership or community?

Can I say everything? All the videos, trainings, insights, the community, the books, the blog, but most of all, the people. And Dominique is such an inspiring, warm and wonderful person!

What are your plans and dreams for the future of your creative practice?

Getting asked to be a featured member on the Typism blog was a BIG dream! And wow, I still cannot believe this happened! #sograteful.

Regarding my creative practice, I look forward to setting up and sticking to a daily practice routine (with the help of the Typism practice roadmap) that will come naturally to me so that it is a proper habit.

I would love to keep improving my lettering and vectorising skills and design, for example, inspirational letterforms and lettering pieces for book covers and other editorial work. Perhaps one day, I can also have a lettering piece in a Typism book. Murals are also so much fun to do. But actually, I don’t know where this journey will take me. I like to keep an open mind for an open road :) and meeting amazing people along the way.

What do you currently struggle with most when it comes to your lettering?

Choices! There are so many things to try, practice, fine-tune, learn and do! What to start with? What style to go for? Etc. I like to explore and it’s challenging to stick to one thing for a long time. That’s actually why I have my weekly challenge but I also use tools like Martina Flor’s Lettering Maker or my ‘Things to letter’ list.

Another big struggle is the digitizing process—understanding and getting a good grasp of Illustrator and anchor point placement is tough (at least for me).

Fortunately, there are many great instructors out there to help with this. Actually, it was Adé Hogue’s zine ‘The Bezier Method’ that gave me an AHA moment about anchor point placement. I’m very sorry to hear about his passing.

Who are your favourite lettering artists and why?

There are so many great lettering artists that I would like to say ‘all of them, but to name my favourites—Typism Community.

Haley Barry from Type Affiliated—Hayley does it all and explains everything.

Aurelie Maron—is another amazing artist who can do everything and excel at it. She keeps experimenting and focuses on play. Love that!

Lauren Hom—she has a way of telling stories and addressing bigger concepts like mental health that really makes you think. And yet her playful lettering is a constant reminder to keep things fun.

ShoutBam!—Tea and Jimbo know how to play! They are a burst of energy and their lettering and products reflect that perfectly.

Martina Flor—her love for clean letterforms shines through everything she makes. Also, she made me look at letters in a completely different way through her course, ‘The Lettering Seminar’.

Mye de Leon—thanks to Mye, I know understand bifurcated serifs ><. I like her way of decorating letters. Mye also has an amazing book on lettering. It’s even translated in Dutch so I have both books, lol.

Stefan Kunz—has an amazing cool style and I love how he letters in notebooks and uses 3D.

Dan Lee—his lettering page in Typism Book 5 is one of my most referenced lettering pieces! His full-page lettering pieces are so good.

Pieter Snijders from Bold Statements—Pieter is a master in 3D and his sign painting is fantastic. I took a few workshops and learned tons from him.

Ivan Castro—his work is so diverse and his books made me understand and love the world of custom lettering.

Liane Barker from Brush and Pen Studio—her sign painting and composition are mindblowing.

C.J. Amaya—his style is bold yet refined. So inspiring. 

Vera Drmanovski—her decorative lettering is seriously wonderful.

Tezay Kir—is my lettering buddy and an amazing lettering artist. He inspires me to take that extra step in my lettering.

Ingeborg Kaandorp from Bij Ingeborg—my Dutch lettering biz buddy who has her own successful studio and who motivates me to keep going. I can go on, but I’ll stop here.

Who would you like to see interviewed next on the Typism podcast and why?

Hayley Barry from Type Affiliated. How does she do everything and still manage to be so structured? How did she start her lettering business? Another topic I find very interesting: multipotentialism and mental health.