Kyle Wayne Benson is a web developer, designer, and typographer from Utah. He got his start doing flash animation as a teenager, an activity he considers to be the “gateway drug” for what would eventually become his career.
After working as a web developer for a number of years, he received certification in type design and went on to establish Very Cool Studio in 2017, an online store, type foundry, and design studio. This venture is combined with his personal foundry label, Fonts by Kyle Wayne Benson, and specializes in type design and lettering, logo design, brand development, and commercial font licensing.
Kyle typically begins his creative process with pencil sketches that are later inked before importing the characters into Illustrator, although some of his designs begin with ink, particularly if they’re reliant on calligraphic techniques and hand writing.
When Kyle approaches a new type design — or any project for that matter — he consistently tries to achieve a certain style. If he can’t execute a given design style due to a lack of tools, he’ll invest the time into building them himself from the ground up.
His innovation and determination are hallmarks of his work ethic, and while he said that every project brings its own set of challenges, he has to also face his personal challenge of having good taste — every design has to not only hit the mark for his client, but for himself.
Regardless of what he’s working on, he adheres to his own directive: “to make the world a more beautiful place.” It’s a goal Kyle achieves — one font at a time.
Maritime Champion is a Clarendon-style display slab with a heavy nautical twist, and one of our favorites from Kyle’s portfolio.
With flared serifs and a boatload of personality, Maritime Champion is a seaworthy type design that will sweep you off your feet and take your designs to uncharted territory. This font family features all-caps lettering in a variety of weights and styles to suit design projects of all kinds.
On the lighter side, Maritime Champion Light, Regular, and Medium stand tall and lean with beautifully flared serifs reminiscent of anchors. Its heavier weights including SemiBold, Bold, and black are perfect for making a strong statement with a friendly tone.
For greater versatility, the family includes a Shoreline (SL) style in four weights, providing Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold character sets with an inline cutout for added flair.
The range of weights and styles within the Maritime Champion family make it well suited to design projects that include displays and signage, advertisements, logos, product packaging, merchandise, apparel, website designs and banners, marketing materials, letterheads, book covers, album artwork, social media imagery, and so much more. It’s a fantastic choice for branding and identity projects that need a strong midcentury display type with a nautical nature.
Maritime Champion provides fractions, localized forms, and contextual alternates through OpenType. It extends multilingual support to Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Catalan, Baltic, Central European, Pan African Latin, Dutch, and Basic Greek for designs intended for an international audience.
Kyle Wayne Benson currently offers nine products through YouWorkForThem, including Maritime Champion’s sibling, Maritime Champion Stencil. Head over to Kyle’s portfolio to take a look at the rest of his work and if you love working with sign-worthy type designs, you’re going to want to bookmark it so you can watch for new releases in the future!
