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Biography

Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator, and self-described “avid internetter”. After graduating with a degree in Graphic and Interactive Design from Tyler School of Art (Temple University) in 2006, she worked for Headcase Design in Philadelphia before taking a position as Senior Designer at Louise Fili Ltd. While working for Louise, she learned most of her skills as a letterer and spent upwards of 16 hours every day working (9 for Louise, 7+ for freelance clients). After two and a half years, Jessica left to further her freelance career and embark on several fun personal projects. Jessica began Daily Drop Cap, a project in which every day she created a new illustrative letter, working through the alphabet a total of twelve times. At its peak, the site had more than 100,000 visitors per month. It culminated with a thirteenth alphabet, each letter crafted by a guest contributor.

Jessica has become as well known for her side projects as she has for her client work. While she doesn’t consider herself a web designer, many of her personal projects are web-centric. She’s created several educational micro-sites including Mom This is How Twitter Works, Should I Work for Free? and Don’t Fear the Internet (with Russ Maschmeyer), each as entertaining as they are helpful. She coined the term “procrastiworking” to describe her tendency to procrastinate on client work by working on personal projects.

Jessica’s clients includes Wes Anderson, Tiffany & Co., The New York Times, Penguin Books, Target, Leo Burnett, American Express, and Wired Magazine. She has also released several commercial typefaces which are available in her store. Jessica has been named a Print Magazine New Visual Artist (20 under 30), one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design, an ADC Young Gun, a “Person to Watch” by GD USA, and one of 25 Emerging Artists by STEP Magazine. She’s been personally profiled in many magazines including Eye Magazine (UK), Communication Arts, Grafik Magazine (UK), and Novum Magazine (Germany). She is currently serving on the Type Directors Club Board of Directors and divides her time fairly evenly between San Francisco, Brooklyn, and airports en route to design and illustration conferences.

Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator, and self-described “avid internetter”. After graduating with a degree in Graphic and Interactive Design from Tyler School of Art, she worked for Headcase Design in Philadelphia before taking a position as Senior Designer at Louise Fili Ltd. While working for Louise, Jessica also maintained a busy freelance career and after two and a half years of little sleep and a lot of lettering, she left to further her freelance career and embark on several personal projects.

Jessica has become as well known for her side projects as she has for her client work. While she doesn’t consider herself a web designer, many of her personal projects are web-centric. Her project Daily Drop Cap, is probably the reason you first stumbled across Jessica’s work, and she’s created several educational micro-sites including Mom This is How Twitter Works, Should I Work for Free? and Don’t Fear the Internet (a collaborative project with Russ Maschmeyer).

Jessica’s clients includes Wes Anderson, Tiffany & Co., The New York Times, Penguin Books, Target, Leo Burnett, and Wired Magazine. She’s been named a Print Magazine New Visual Artist (20 under 30), one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design, an ADC Young Gun, a “Person to Watch” by GD USA, and one of 25 Emerging Artists by STEP Magazine. She is currently serving on the Type Directors Club Board of Directors.

Jessica Hische is a letterer and illustrator best known for her personal projects Daily Drop Cap and the Should I Work for Free? flowchart as well as her work for clients like Wes Anderson, Penguin Books, and Google. She’s been named one of Print Magazine’s New Visual Artists, an ADC Young Gun, and one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design two years in a row. She is currently serving on the Type Directors Club board of directors, has traveled the world speaking about lettering and illustration, and has probably consumed enough coffee to power a small nation.

Jessica Hische is a crazy cat lady known for her lettering, silly projects, and occasional foul mouth.

Press Photos

  • Photograph by John Madere

  • Photographs by Peter 0’Dwyer for Goddess Guide

  • Photograph by Michael O’Neal

Photographs featured were shot by professional photographers and must be used with appropriate credits. To use these images in a magazine or book, email the photographer to discuss usage and inquire about higher resolution artwork. The photos by John Madere and Michael O'Neal are free to use on any blog and in any magazine or other publication. Michael’s portraits are 1000px wide and should be large enough for most online formats.

Work Image Use

If you are writing an article about me, you are free to use images of my work on your blog. If you want to use images of my work editorially with articles NOT about me, you must license individual images. To request high res images for magazine articles or books please gather low res jpgs of the pieces you are requesting (10 images or less) and submit them to me as a zipped file so that I can gather these images.