Ray Larabie
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Ray Larabie (born 1970 in Ottawa, Ontario) is a prolific designer of computer TrueType and OpenType fonts. Beginning in 1996, Larabie distributed his designs over the internet as freeware. Many of his designs were inspired by corporate and rock band logos and whose names paid sly tribute to their sources:
- Crystal Radio Kit - From the 1970s-vintage Radio Shack logo and named for a product once sold by that retailer.
- King Richard - From the 1970s-vintage Plymouth logo. It is named for a nickname of racer Richard Petty who raced Plymouths for much of his career.
- Gyparody - based on the well-known television game show Jeopardy.
- Chinese Rocks - Inspired by lettering on a shipping carton of Chinese-made dinnerware and named for the 1977 punk rock song about heroin addiction.
- Pastor Of Muppets - Derived from the 1980s-era logo of heavy metal group Metallica, the name is a parody of that group's song Master of Puppets
Other Larabie fonts, such as Degrassi and Electroharmonix, were creations of Ray Larabie’s own prolific imagination. Early designs were typically science fiction, futurist and techno-oriented, but he eventually produced fonts in a wide variety of styles, including pop culture, 70's retro, decorative, handwritten, experimental, weird and novelty faces.
Many of his designs would become commonly used in advertising, enjoying considerable popularity with the music and clothing industries.
Ray released over 400 freeware fonts before announcing in 2001 that he would focus exclusively on commercial fonts that he sold through his new type foundry Typodermic.
Larabie’s wide range of cultural themes and subject matter and prolific creative output ostensibly inspired numerous other amateur designers to create freeware fonts.
