Requisite Sparky Bio Page

I’m Sparky, generally known as Dan Rhatigan, and I run this joint. There's plenty to be discovered about me if you just look around, but here are a few assorted details to enhance your understanding of who I may or may not be:

• For quite a while, I was a type director for Monotype, looking after their New York and London offices. I first got involved with the company while working on a joint project between Monotype and the University of Reading, researching and designing non-Latin typefaces, primarily those used in India. I’m pretty glad I was able to shift over the type-design world full-time.
• It’s easy to realize that I'm a pretty serious typography nut if you spend time talking to me, but my tattoos of various letterforms may be an even clearer sign that I'm REALLY INTO IT.
• On the side, I publish a zine called Pink Mince. I’m extremely proud of it, and it most definitely has nothing to do with my day job. Why don’t you order a copy and see what you think?
• You can look at some of my design work and history here. (Those pages are a bit out of date, but you get the idea.)
• I was born in 1970 in scenic Staten Island, the unglamorous, semi-suburbany part of New York City. I grew up the youngest of six kids, and I have 25 first cousins. Can you tell we’re Irish Catholic?
• I lived in New York City for most of my life, with a few stretches in Boston and London for a change of pace. As a matter of fact, although I’m back in New York right now, I still spend some time in London every month.
• I moved to the U.K. to do the MA Typeface Design program at the University of Reading, which was one of the better decisions I’ve made in my life. I loved the hell out of it, and finally figured out what I should have been doing with myself all these years.
• My past academic escapades have included 12 years of Catholic school, a BFA magna cum laude in graphic design from B.U. (and I’ll be the first to admit that I used the demands of an art program as an excuse to shirk more serious academic interests I might have pursued in another life), two cracks at a master’s degree in design (a year at B.U. and a year at Pratt Institute, neither of which challenged me the way I’d hoped), and a couple of years teaching design and typography courses at the City College of New York.
• At some point during my late twenties, I was infected with HIV. I don't exactly know how, but it goes without saying that I regret all the times that I thought I was acting safely enough, but wasn’t quite. It's a stinky burden to carry around. I’m very lucky, though, that I am in excellent health and I have the resources at my disposal to stay that way.
• If you’re just here cruising, or being a voyeuristic lurker, then you may as well just cut to the chase and tell me. I can probably use the ego boost.
• And I'm a big ol’ ’mo, in case you’re wondering how to tailor those flirtatious remarks.
• The stuff on this web site is just a glimpse. There’s more to me than you'll ever see revealed here. Never forget that.