Keith Morris

Keith Morris was born in Sydney, NSW Australia. His first job as a junior artist in 1961 introduced him to the world of Commercial Art and in particular a lifelong interest or you might say a love affair with letters. As well as all the other duties of a junior in a budding Sydney art studio there was time in lunch hours to rush up to the Mitchell Library and find out more about type, typesetting and lettering on a commercial basis. An older member of the studio told him of two books titled ‘Lettering for Advertising’ and ‘Letter Design in the Graphic Arts’ by Mort Leach. He was now totally aroused and fascinated by letterforms in all their guises.

Practicing and learning at every opportunity led to a meeting with a very well known and local lettering artist Bruce Bennetts. He was inspired by this meeting and that has lasted to this day. His interest in graphic design was also developing and a relocation in jobs beckoned and a career in general graphic design commenced with roles as a finished artist, designer, letterer and then later a senior designer in one of Sydney’s leading design studios, Graphic Concept. It was at this stage that principal Maurice Schlesinger and Keith worked on a typeface to be entered into the Letraset Letragraphica range. It was excepted and ‘Fino’ was made into a Letraset dry transfer face.

A move into advertising as an art director was a great experience but a recall to pure graphics was on the horizon and a move to a leading packaging design studio satisfied this thirst and a long lasting position as a designer and creative director followed. Published work and packaging awards were rewards and recognition of hard work by his peers. The last eight years have been most satisfying with a concentration on lettering, logo, brandmark and typeface design with clients across Australia, Asia, Europe, United States and the United Kingdom.