Ivan Castro

Ivan Castro was born on the outskirts of Barcelona in the late 70s, and from a very young age he showed an unusual interest in letterforms, drawing Gothic letters and Superman S’s here and there. A few years later, he makes a living doing more or less the same thing—that is, calligraphy and lettering.

He divides his time between running his studio near Barcelona—where he works for clients around the world as a calligrapher and graphic designer—and teaching at schools such as Elisava, BAU, and Barcelona Caligrafía. He also gives lectures and workshops wherever needed. He is the author of the manuals “El ABC del Lettering” (Campgràfic, 2017) and “Lettering a tope” (Larousse, 2018).

“My approach to letterform is always from an expressive standpoint, trying to explore the communicative potential of the alphabet’s shapes. I always start working with a pencil in hand, and from there, each project evolves in the way it needs to. I try not to have a specific style, but this way of working ultimately gives my work a certain internal coherence”.