The Fourth Annual Craft Lake City LetterWest 2025

The people who organized LetterWest onstage for a photo.

Here's a thanks to everyone that made LetterWest possible. Photo: Evan Hancock

Local Events

Another year, another successful LetterWest! It seems that Craft Lake City has only gotten bigger and better with each event they plan and the community has grown in response. Since its inception in 2009, Craft Lake City has strived to highlight local artisans and artists in our backyard. Featuring artists from near and far, LetterWest celebrated the creative spirit of Utah. From calligraphy to tattoos, to graffiti, LetterWest 2025 had it all.

LetterWest took place from March 14-15 and had no shortage of entertainment for the creative attendees. Friday started out strong with Paper & Ink Arts coming all the way from Nashville, Tennessee to provide a pop-up shop for attendees to stock up on art supplies. Those supplies were put to good use at the workshops featuring the talents of Chaz Bojorquez, Jill De Haan, Hayley Francis and Cymone Wilder. Ken Barber gave a keynote speech all about the lessons he learned through lettering, inspiring many hopeful creatives in the crowd. Of course, no event is complete without a captivating emcee like Kyle Letender a.k.a. TomBoy the drag queen, who went so far as to write and perform songs all about lettering. Attendees got to leave their mark on the event with two community art projects and were treated to local food trucks throughout the two-day event.

Saturday opened with a public panel discussion featuring Ken Barber, Melissa Esplin and Hayley Francis. Esplin also taught a workshop about calligraphy in Procreate, Barber gave a lesson about flourished script and Bojorquez gave a keynote speech detailing his lettering journey as a graffiti artist. It was a truly informative experience for everyone. LetterWest didn’t end there though, as Dark Arts Tattoo provided an extravagant afterparty for all the lettering enthusiasts with a live screen printing demo of designs by Skyler Chubak.

LetterWest would not have been possible without the participation of Midvale Main, SLUG Magazine, Dark Arts Tattoo, Staybridge Suites, The Pearl, Webaholics, Paper & Ink Art and so many more. Here’s hoping for many more LetterWests to come. Learn more at craftlakecity.com and follow @letter_west on Instagram for updates on next year’s conference!