Ray Larabie

Ray Larabie (born 1970 in Ottawa, Ontario) is a prolific designer of computer TrueType and OpenType fonts. Beginning in 1996, Larabie distributed his designs over the internet as freeware, operating as his own independent type foundry LarabieFonts.

Larabie became interested in fonts in the early 70’s when his grandmother gave him sheets of Letraset. He eventually became familiar with typefaces, and could identify hundreds of fonts by name. He began creating typefaces with pen and paper and later, on his first computer, a TRS-80.

List of Larabie Fonts

Many of his designs were inspired by corporate and rock band logos, whose names paid sly tribute to their sources:

* Crystal Radio Kit - From the 1970s-vintage Radio Shack logo and named for a product once sold by that retailer.
* Chinese Rocks - Inspired by lettering on a shipping carton of Chinese-made dinnerware and named for the 1977 punk rock song about heroin addiction.
* Gyparody - based on the well-known television game show "Jeopardy!".
* Joystix [http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/larabie/joystix] - used in early video games, notably Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Super Mario Bros. In the 1980s it was used throughout such games, but by 1995 the font had been relegated to menu screens and story lines that took place between levels.
* King Richard - From the 1970s-vintage Plymouth logo. It is named for a nickname of racer Richard Petty who raced Plymouths for much of his career.
* Pastor Of Muppets - Derived from the 1980s-era logo of heavy metal group Metallica, the name is a parody of that group's song "Master of Puppets."
* Pricedown - based on the logo of the 1972-to-present game show "The Price Is Right."
* Zrnic - based on the original logo for the Sony PlayStation.

Other Larabie fonts, such as "Degrassi" and "Electroharmonix", were creations of Ray Larabie’s own imagination. Early designs were typically science fiction, futurist and techno-oriented, but he eventually produced fonts in a wide variety of styles, including pop culture, '70s retro, decorative, handwritten, experimental, weird and novelty faces. This visibility lead to Larabie's designs becoming commonly used in advertising, enjoying considerable popularity with the music and clothing industries.

Ray Larabie's vast range of cultural themes and subject matter in his work, as well as his prolific creative output, ostensibly inspired numerous other amateur designers to create freeware fonts and distribute them on their own websites or through font distribution channels. Larabie released over 400 freeware fonts before announcing in 2001 that he would focus exclusively on commercial fonts that he sold through his new independent type foundry Typodermic.

Trivia

* Ray Larabie was employed at Rockstar Toronto and had contributed his design prowess to multiple video game titles—including the hit series' "Grand Theft Auto" and "Max Payne"—before he quit the company in 2002 to focus full-time on type design.

See also

* List of freeware type designers

External links

* [http://www.larabiefonts.com/ Larabie's freeware fonts are still distributed here]
* [http://www.typodermic.com/ Typodermic Type Foundry]
* [http://www.ccfonts.com/ Closed Caption Fonts - a royalty-free solution for FCC requirements]
* [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,377/ Ray Larabie] at MobyGames