Louise Fili is an influential typographer due to her usage of hand-drawn typography, which is especially prevalent in the modern age where most designers typically use computers for typography. She was also one of the very few major female designers when she launched a business in 1989, which made her a prominent woman role model in what was a largely male-dominated field; even now she remains a very influential female figure to many young designers today.
Fili has always proven to be a rather impressive typographer. Even as a child, she was described to have carved letters above her bed, believing that letters were just really cool. She also taught herself calligraphy when she was in highschool, and once she discovered what graphic design was, she was interested in moving to New York to work as a designer. From 1978 to 1989, she worked as a senior designer for Herb Lubali and an art director of Pantheon Books, in which she designed about 2,000 book jackets, before leaving to launch a business of her own.
What makes Fili particularly unique in her method of designing is that she works personally with clients instead of handing off the project to someone else. She also tends to work with restaurants and food companies, mainly due to her love of food; in fact, she claims to have ensured she never strayed from her main interests, which are “food, type, and all things Italian.” Not only that, but Fili often uses retro-European styles as inspiration, which adds a very distinct historical aesthetic to her work.
Louise Fili has made many contributions to the field of typography, and received many awards over the years as a result, such as Gold and SIlver Medals from the Society of Illustrators and the New York Art Director’s Club, the Premio Grafico from the Bologna Book Fair, and three James Beard award nominations. Some of her work is also featured in permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, and the Bilbiothéque Nationale. Not only that, but Fili is a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame, receiving medals for Lifetime Achievement from the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Type Directors Club, alongside the Frederic W. Goudy Award for Excellence in Typography.
Fili has also proven herself to be a talented author, writing many books over the years: Louise Fili: A Designer’s Process, Elegantissima, Grafica della Strada, Graphique de la Rue, Gráfica de les Rambles, The Cognoscenti’s Guide to Florence, Italianissimo, and many, many more. This has helped give designers both new and old plenty of references to take inspiration from in their own work, which only solidifies Fili’s major influence to the field of typography.