I’m Ray Larabie, born in 1970 in Ottawa, Canada. From the age of five, I was that odd kid fascinated with license plates and store signs. While other kids begged for toys, I lobbied for illuminated letters. My grandmother, who worked at the CMHC, unknowingly fueled the fire; her coworkers “recycled” half-used sheets of Letraset, and suddenly I was a six-year-old who could rattle off Helvetica and Univers like a pint-sized typographic savant.
Growing Up in the Woods
At eight, my family moved to cottage country. Neighbors were scarce, trees were plentiful, and the nearest store was a two-hour bike ride away. It was the perfect setting to be alone with a sketchpad and a restless imagination.
Computers Enter the Picture
The TRS-80 Color Computer arrived when I was twelve. With its mighty 16K of memory and ALL CAPS GLORY, I discovered the joys of creating pixel fonts. It wasn’t exactly a social hobby, but I didn’t mind. Later, high school brought me back to Ottawa, where I attended vocational art school and realized I wasn’t the only weirdo in the world—just one of many. A Commodore Amiga expanded my toolkit, leading to my first video game job at sixteen. The game itself may not have been a masterpiece, but it gave me a taste of making things people actually used.
From Carpets to Curves
After earning a diploma in classical animation in Oakville, I discovered the industry was on life support. I drifted into odd jobs, sold carpets, and made shareware games on the side. Then fate arrived in the form of a pirated copy of Fontographer. Once I discovered vector curves and Bézier points, I was hooked. My evenings became a blur of letters and experiments; a double life began—video game artist by day, secret font designer by night.
Typodermic Takes Off
By 2001, a few fonts had gained traction, and I founded Typodermic. Two years later, I left the game industry with dramatic flair and went all-in on type design. Since then, I’ve hopscotched across Canada—from Mississauga to Niagara Falls to Vancouver—before settling in Nagoya, Japan, in 2008. Typodermic became a corporation in 2011, and I’ve been herding fonts ever since.
The Present Day
Today, I spend my time refining old designs, and working with customers. Managing hundreds of typefaces is like herding cats, if cats were made of vectors. But at heart, I’m still the same kid who stared at license plates.