Huston Wilson, known as Hust Wilson, is a self-taught graphic designer based in Johannesburg. Growing up in the small community of Eldorado Park, Hust tells us he remembers ‘just wanting to draw and learn different design skills’, and improve his knowledge of the history of design.
‘I learnt a lot of my design knowledge through Youtube tutorials and enjoy I wide range of styles within in Typography and Lettering. I do to have an African aesthetic of work that I enjoy when working on Illustration and Lettering’, he says. Growing up doing pencil portraits, cartoons and graffiti tagging, Hust recalls never really realising creating fonts was job and is fully self taught as a designer. ‘I found my love for typography and lettering in 2014 and have never looked back. I started making sacrifices to buy more Typography and Lettering books, as well as buying digital PDFs on Lettering Library’, he adds.
One of our favourite works from Hust is his bold, free font, Bolden Display. ‘Bolden Display was inspired by letterpress letters with less counter space on the letters with tight kerning which is great for posters, display copy and editorial’, Hust tells us. You can definitely feel the letterpress inspiration with Bolden – it brings a softer, more tactile touch to your regular bold display sans. ‘I enjoyed creating this font, and I really wanted the people to enjoy it as well. It got me excited to see what people would create if they had access to this font for free!’ Hust adds.
Hust recently shared a WIP font he’s been working on which we think looks really exciting. ‘This was inspired by digital numbers, using a 5×5 grid to help layout the components of each letter’, he tells us. ‘Some letters had to be adjusted out of a grid to have a consistent width of the letters. I am hoping to launch this early next year – so stay tuned.’
As for the future, Hust just hopes to see more of the creativity we’ve seen in 2020. ‘Lettering and typography has been growing and has been so creatively expressive to share great messages or help with brands throughout 2020. Which is exciting to know what the next year holds for us’, he says. Be sure to follow Hust for updates on his work and to check out his WIP font which will hopefully be released early next year! You can get your hands on Bolden Display for free over at Type Department.
