Wander around Downtown, and you’re likely to discover one of Type by Cone’s bright, typographic murals.

Inside the new Golden Fog Coffee shop on Casino Center Boulevard, a perky, pink-and-yellow mural by the designer (real name Conor Fathe-

Aazam) reads, “Today’s smile is proudly sponsored by Golden Fog Coffee.” Outside Main Street restaurant Casa Don Juan, another of his murals features a Frida Kahlo quote painted in beautiful lettering and accented with starbursts.

There are additional murals inside Real Results Fitness, on the Zappos campus, at the soon-to-open Arts District taproom SerVehZah and beyond. Fathe-Aazam has been making murals to support Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, and he’s in the planning stages for other Downtown works.

“I’ve always been a huge, huge fan of letters and the way that they can be manipulated to show any form of emotion,” Fathe-Aazam says. “Visual communication is very exciting to me.”

Fathe-Aazam says most of his designs begin as “doodles and sketches on any piece of paper that I can find.” He takes a photo of the drawing with his iPad and finalizes the idea on his tablet. Then he transfers the image to the final surface, such as a wall if it’s a mural. “From there, it would be brushes, lots of painters tape [and] projectors,” Fathe-Aazam says. “There’s a whole bunch of things that you can get your hands dirty with, for sure.”

Even though he grew up in South Africa, Fathe-Aazam always had family ties to Southern Nevada, even spending time here as a kid. In 2016, the graphic designer moved to Las Vegas, starting out as a cabana host at the Linq before working as an art director for Zappos. Fathe-Aazam credits the creative environment at Zappos for helping him hone his craft in letter building and illustration.

For the past several months, Fathe-Aazam has been working full time as an independent designer and illustrator. As such, he just launched a YouTube channel (under the name TypeByCone), on which he will teach viewers about murals, logo design, digital illustration and more. The first episode chronicles his process for the Golden Fog mural and includes a trip to Home Depot for paint, a pit stop at Tacotarian for lunch and a time-lapse video of him painting the mural. Fathe-Aazam is upbeat and friendly; the video is energizing.

Inspired by the “really rad photographers” around him, Fathe-Aazam bought a camera. “Having it on hand, it was really fun to just document what I was doing,” the designer says of the origins of his YouTube channel. He says that in art, he would sometimes “flounder” his way through until he figured it out. He decided it would be cool to share his process and his hard-earned knowledge with others. “It’s definitely an educational platform,” Fathe-Aazam says, “so that people can learn from the mistakes I’ve made and maybe make it easier [on them].” Fathe-

Aazam plans to release a new video every Monday.

It might seem random, but sneakers are among the planned topics for the artist’s YouTube channel. The “self-professed sneaker addict” once dreamed of a career in designing the shoes. Instead he paints them, and his commissions range from about $600 to $1,000. “[There’s an] urge that all of us have to create,” Fathe-Aazam says. “As soon as I got my hands on a pair of white leather sneakers I had to paint on them.”

Type by Cone YouTube: bit.ly/37QPYMm Instagram: @TypeByCone typebycone.com