About Us

So what exactly does it mean to create type? Currently A+ takes on three kinds of projects.

We design original typefaces for retail licensing. You can find these fonts here and on Future Fonts. Our original designs are often years in the making, with layers of references, sketching, and prototyping coming together to create something new and exciting.

We also provide type expertise on large-scale identity projects, for which we create custom typefaces, logos, and wordmarks. In this capacity, we often collaborate with a studio that is handling the strategy and brand design and the in-house team that will own the identity system when it is complete. We love finding inspiration in conversations across disciplines and completing complex ideas on tight timelines.

And finally, we also occasionally design type-forward identities in their entirety, usually for businesses in the food, beverage, or hospitality industries, where we have close connections and deep understanding. These projects are rare but special—we carefully select the businesses we work with, usually become close friends, and often the work we do results in original typefaces that we continue to develop.

Above are just a few of the firms, companies, and institutions that have used letterforms we’ve designed, and a handful of these logos were designed at A+.

Graham Bradley is a typeface designer and the owner of A+. He got his start at Frere-Jones Type, working on Mallory and Retina. From 2017 to 2023 he was an instructor at Type West at Letterform Archive. During that time, he taught 125 students, including the first full scholarship class of Introduction to Modern Type Design and the first online (and worldwide) Type West certificate program. Graham also contributes to projects at MCKL, such as Owners and Trust. He is a graduate of the Type@Cooper program at The Cooper Union, and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, cookbook author Maria Zizka, and their two boys, Arthur and Lewis.

I’ve been lucky to have two of the best mentors I could imagine in this field. Thank you, Jeremy Mickel, for always gently and wisely shifting my attention to the bigger picture, answering my never-ending questions about the business, and adding so much creativity, flexibility, and collaboration to my design process. Thank you, Tobias Frere-Jones, for all the know-how dispensed in little red pen marks on paper, and for hiring me to work with you at the very start of something new and motivating.

This website was designed by Antonio Mondragón and Sarah Drexler, and built by Louis Amiot. Thank you for giving my work this lively, functional, and elegant home. I’m constantly amazed by the many ways you anticipate the site’s needs and prepare for its growth.

A+ would not exist without the clients that have commissioned or licensed type from us. Thank you especially to Michael Freimuth, Patrick Richardson, Elisa Maezono, Jelle Maréchal, Casey Martin, Nick Wiesner, Mira Khandpur, Lisa Grant, Phil Ruppaner, Jason Dietrich, John Caldon, Silas Munro, Alexander Isley, Daisy and Greg Ryan, Melissa Yee and Ken Miller, Nelly Mousseau and Pierre-Yves Henry, Rachel and Brendan Greenspan, Lia Ronnen, and Judy Pray, for trusting us with your projects these past few years.

My friends in the design world, I’m truly just trying to keep up with you all. You’re a never ending source of inspiration. I’ve been so lucky to learn from you, teach with you, work for you, hire you, etc. Thank you Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans, Maria Doreuli, Nina Stössinger, Lizy Gershenzon, Travis Kochel, James Edmondson, Jesse Ragan, Ben Kiel, Stephen Nixon, Chris Skillern, Libbie Bischoff, Kevin Twohy, Rob Saunders, Grendl Löfkvist, Stephen Coles, and Elise Carlton.

Sonia Guerrero, thank you for looking after Arthur and Lewis with such humor, grace, and tirelessness, and also always turning off the stove before I burn the beans.

Maria, thank you for naming all my fonts, weathering all my freak-outs, laughing with me when both the boys are up at 3am, and being the center of my universe ever since that glorious day our friends put us on the same volleyball team back in college.