Marta Velázquez is a Madrid-based illustrator and lettering artist who works turning texts into illustrations with life.
Since 2015 I have worked under the pseudonym HappyLetters, developing a line and style of work focused on lettering, alongside delivering lettering courses and training.
2022 marks a new chapter in my professional career.
Inspired by the texts that I discover in my daily life (mostly in books and songs) I felt inspired to visually interpret and give life to them developing a new personal visual language.
Whether reading a passage in a book that catches my attention or visualising the lyrics of a song whilst humming it, I instinctively turn those texts into shapes and colors: I feel that they cannot stay on paper or in a predetermined typography.
My passion has become my obsession as I take words and turn them into striking illustrations; linking and playing in infinite ways with letters, words or phrases, juxtaposed with bold colour palettes and textures.
My style is based on a combination of letters and illustrated elements in which both parts are equally important, forming complex compositions (even using very simple shapes), working with the overlapping of elements, the repetition of patterns and symbols and the connection between all the pieces involved.
Today I work under my own name Marta Velázquez and have crafted a new creative aesthetic where lettering and illustration coexist.
More about me
When I’m not busy in my studio, you can find my son and I inventing games, singing our favourite songs, cycling around Madrid Rio or planning the next trip with friends.
During the pandemic, motherhood and a change of family structure transformed my outlook, both personally and professionally. Through this period of upheaval there came many changes and adjustments, and I have emerged stronger and more connected than ever with my creativity.
My creative process
My creative process always starts with a text that inspires me: a phrase from a song, a poem, a passage from a book, a phrase or a social event to which I feel committed.
Each of these texts takes one form or another depending on my mood, the time or place I find myself. Letters make up the text; the illustrative elements that arise around that visual image that, just for a few seconds, are visualised in my head, and suddenly jump onto the page instinctively.
Once I put pencil to paper shapes and elements begin to emerge: the pieces fit together freely and intuitively; almost like a game, taking on a life of its own. And this is quite simply the sum of my work: freedom and expressiveness.
