Phil Martin
Born in Dallas, Texas, Phil Martin was a bombardier during the Second World War. For many years, he worked as a cartoonist before moving into commercial art and lettering. He also spent some time as a radio comedian. Before founding Alphabet Innovations in 1969, he worked in two art studios. In 1974 he established TypeSpectra. Together these two businesses produced over 4000 film fonts for use in the VGC Photo Typositor. Later they were licensed to other font foundries. Many of these fonts are being digitised by Steve Jackman of Red Rooster and Martin Simonson among others.
He wrote a regular column for The Typographer, the now-defunct journal of the Typographers International Association. He died in October 2005.
[LC, December 2009]
