Tiny Talk with Alanna Munro

What’s something about your creative process that would surprise people?

I don’t know if this counts as surprising but when doing something really visual like designing fonts, I’ve found that listening to things with strong storytelling makes it a lot easier for me to get into a creative flow. My top choices for this would be any album by Coheed and Cambria or listening to actual play dungeons & dragons like Critical Role.

You seem busy, and by that I mean, you crank out a lot of stuff. What do other aspects of your life look like in order to make a consistent, high quality output possible?

I really love what I do—making fonts and talking to people about typography and the role in plays in graphic design and society makes me feel whole. I also really enjoy flitting between different kinds of tasks that each have their own variation of a puzzle or strategy, so when I “go to work” I’m having a blast (almost) all of the time, even when doing the business side of things. My mom tells me that I inherited the “busy gene” from my nana and that I always needed to be doing something to be happy and I think it could be true. I run a type foundry, I co-organize a local speaker series called Type Brigade, I teach a typography class a couple times a week, and I take care of my kids and household—it feels like a long list of things that take a lot of time!

But I think the core of it is time management and having a great support system. Learning how to be efficient with limited work hours and having supportive family and friends really makes it all happen. I have two kiddos (10 & 7) and before they were old enough to go to grade school, I was the primary caregiver for them. This meant that I was making fonts or working on graphic design projects during naps, after they went to sleep, during weekends, or handing them off to a grandparent for a day so I could finish a client project all while my husband was working full time. I learned a lot about how to be efficient with my time during those years. Now, during the 6 hours while they are at school I get as much done as I can, but I often need to put in some more hours in the evenings and weekends. My husband is and has always been the biggest supporter of me and my business ambitions—whenever he is home he is more than happy to take the lead on the childcare and let me huddle up in the corner making fonts or dealing with all the stuff that comes with running a small business. I also consult with him often about business stuff, he’s a great sounding board for when I am wondering if I’m going in a good direction.

To stay sane through it all I have to make sure to take care of myself so I love going for a run first thing in the morning whenever schedule allows (probably about 3 times a week). I also have learned to go with the flow of the work—sometimes I’m in a sprint to hit a deadline or get a font across the finish line but if work is less demanding I try to take that time to play a video game and relax for extra hours in the day without feeling guilty. There’s always so much to do in a small business and I have more ideas than I have time to make them all happen but I have to be conscious about recharging while managing so many projects and life stuff to do.

You’re in Vancouver, British Columbia! I’d relocate to there (with my family, obviously) in a heartbeat if I could. What are some quirks about that corner of Canada that you love? How do you like raising a family there?

Vancouver feels deeply like home to me because I was born and raised just outside Vancouver in a city called Coquitlam. The slog through the long rainy season can be difficult for some people but it’s perfect for staying inside and getting a lot of fonts made haha. Also, the summer is always absolutely stunning in contrast.

Not sure if it’s a quirk but Vancouver is often described as a beautiful city with cold, unfriendly people. But I think when people say “unfriendly” they actually mean “not extroverted”. A Vancouverite will generally not go out of their way to be extremely welcoming and conversational with random strangers but I think that might be because we are a city of introverts who would prefer to not expend a lot of social energy at the grocery store. At the same time, once you find your way into one of the many micro communities that share your interests, you connect with so many cool people who are extremely warm and welcoming. As an introvert myself, I actually prefer it this way—I’d much rather save my energy for a conversation about parenting after school or a connection made over a shared interest in typefaces than have 16 conversations about how it’s raining again.

As for raising a family here, I love it. We are just outside the downtown core in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in a small, two bedroom condo, which is a tight fit for a family of four but everything we need is so close by. We may not have a yard, but we can do a one hour loop from our doorstep that lets us stop and play at five different playgrounds. Within walking distance or a very short drive there are delicious options for any kind of food you could want (my kids eat everything from pizza to curry to sushi and bubble tea). There are community events like car free day where Main Street turns into a space for food and arts vendors. And there are interesting areas that the kids love exploring like Granville Island, Van Dusen Gardens, or Blodel Conservatory.

We are so close to all kinds of nature-based adventures. We take the kids camping a few times a year, bike everywhere in the summer, swim at the community centre pool or at a lake, take a ferry to explore the islands, walk along a beach or through a forest, go snowboarding in the winter—it always feels like there is something interesting to explore and you don’t have to go very far to experience it.

I have a semi-hot take that there are no bad fonts. What’s something mundane that you have a surprisingly strong opinion about?

This one was tough but I guess I’ll say that I think kids should learn calligraphy instead of handwriting! The purpose of handwriting is to learn how to write quickly, which is a useless skill now that we have computers, but calligraphy teaches you why the letters look the way they do and helps to form good penmanship habits like the order of strokes. Maybe writing by hand is on the way out but I think practicing a bit of calligraphy is good for everyone!