About - Regie Bariuan

Welcome to REGIE.PH!

Hi, I'm Regie Bariuan.

I'm a lettering artist and calligrapher based in the Philippines.

I create positivity-infused work that inspires people to take action on their dream.

My goal for REGIE.PH is to chronicle my journey in getting better at calligraphy while sharing everything that I learn along the way.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.

Steve Jobs

My Story

I'm a product of the traditional school system and followed the same advice of getting good grades then get a good job. Those words from Steve Jobs really hit me and I realized that I have to start looking.

I went into exploration mode and tried lots of things. I went out of my comfort zone by going to events and meeting different people.

That led me to Jessica Hische a famous lettering artist. I was there when she gave a talk at a design conference back in 2014.

Right then and there, I just knew that I found love. Just to be clear, I did not fell in love with her, I fell in love with lettering.

I found what I love!

Upon seeing Jessica's work, I realized that my love of letterforms began way back.

I instantly remembered those moments in school where I would draw at the back part of my notebooks. I would sketch logos and would sometimes draw the names of my classmates.

Throughout my life, I always have a fond appreciation for beautiful letterforms.

One year of procrastination...

Knowing what you want to do is different than doing what you want to do.

For one whole year, I did not do anything. I did a lot of research about what becoming a lettering artist is all about.

But what feels like progress was just something that kept me from doing the actual work.

What pushed me to take action was joining a lettering challenge in the month of February 2015.

That was the first time that I posted my work on Instagram and I did that every single day for the entire month. That officially started my journey.

In hindsight, I am thankful that it was just one year. I know that there are a lot of people out there that have been putting off something that they want to do for years.

I just thought that when I get older, I don't want to have regrets about not doing the things that I want to do.

I suck at brush calligraphy!

That's what I told myself back in 2015. It was really frustrating when the gap between expectation and reality is very wide.

Maybe your someone who has been trying this out for a while.

Maybe you're a complete beginner with zero experience.

We all have one thing in common. All of our work will suck at the start.

Hey, just noticed how I phrased that. The key words there are "at the start". In every skill that we are trying to learn, we were all beginners at some point.

I captured a moment on my Instagram account when I was starting to learn brush lettering.

The caption was correct. It did suck! I was really shaky. My hand was all over the place. I couldn't even control the brush pen correctly.

It was really hard. I felt frustrated every time I tried to write something! It also did not help that I keep on seeing a lot of great lettering and calligraphy work online.

The amount of effort you put would reflect the quality of work that you create.

Practice makes progress. It won't be easy at the start. This is true for every new skill that we try to learn.

The real question is:

How bad do you want to do this?

Will you join me in navigating this creative journey?

I still have a long way to go to reach my goals.

But what I learned is that it is more fun to do this with someone that has the same aspirations. If that's you then you're welcome to join the fun.

All you have to do is get started today. See you on the other side!

Let's connect!