Profile
Hello! I am a graphic designer, web designer, illustrator and artist with an emphasis in print, typography, illustration, and semiotics based in San Francisco, California. 

I am excited by all things profane, arcane, weird and everything in between. My work draws from tattoo traditions, folk art, and counter-culture aesthetics. While I embrace digital practices, I often break away from the screen and hold myself accountable to meticulous standards of craftsmanship and hand work. My goal is to disrupt the lines between digital construction and bespoke handiwork. For me, the most compelling work emerges from the study of these trade and craft traditions shaped by diverse cultural perspectives. My approach to design must involve the rigorous understanding of the systems that serve workers, designers and clients. I am passionate about work for inclusive, accessible communities. 


       
Contact

Education
University of San Francisco
Spring 2024 – Spring 2026
Design, BA

◦ Dean’s List, 3 Semesters

◦ Visual Communication, Web Design,   Typography, Community Engaged Design, Publication Design, Print Making

San Francisco City College
Spring 2023 – Fall 2023

Santa Rosa Junior College
Fall 2021 – Fall 2022
Employment
Design Student Assistant
July 2025 – May 2026
University of San Francisco

◦ Designed multi-department newsletters     distributed biweekly to 200+ students and staff, responsible for layout, typography and editorial consistency
◦ Produced promotional materials for 5+ exhibition and academic events, ensuring visual cohesion across print and digital assets

Barista
May 2023 – July 2025
Blue Bottle Coffee, San Francisco

◦ High volume environment, multitasking,                communication
◦ Delegated tasks in an organized workflow
◦Crucial member of one of the highest sales locations in the company

Skills
Design Tools
◦ Adobe Illustrator
◦ Adobe Photoshop
◦ Adobe InDesign
◦ Adobe AfterEffects
◦ Adobe Lightroom
◦ Cavalry

Web + Digital Tools
◦ HTML
◦ CSS
◦ VS Code
◦ Figma

Productivity
◦ Google + Microsoft

Office Software
◦ Excel
◦ Notion
◦ Evernote



Parker Leabo
Designer, Illustrator, Artist
Born, raised and based in San Francisco Designer and Illustrator specializing in 
Print Media, Publication Design, and Typography Contact

Instagram

1

The Shape of the Book, Alberto Manguel

March 2026

Publication Design
Book includes 9 spreads, featuring original photography shot and composed to best embody the text. The Shape of the Book is a visual book redesigned around Alberto Manguel’s essay from A History of Reading, treating typography as a visual and textural element rather than a neutral carrier of text.

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Each spread was designed to best embody its passage. For example, a section describing mass print production is anchored by dense, large-scale type performing the proliferation it describes, a passage on italic type sets type in cascading, overlapping, italic letterforms that enact the very slowing of the reader’s eye as described in the text. Photos of abstracted library shelves, unconventional angles of printed materials, and close details of ornamented books reinforce the central argument that a printed object’s aura lives in the finer details rather than its contents alone. Abandoning conventional grid logic in favor of this experimental approach demanded rigorous compositional discipline, requiring every decision of leading, tracking, type size, negative space and image placement to be carefully negotiated. Final publication is a 6” x 9” saddle stitched soft cover with full flaps, printed in full color CMYK on high quality stock. 

2

LOUD TYPE

November 2025

Publication Design
This project was in response to a prompt of documenting a community through the lens of typography.
Originally written, photographed and designed, I chose to create a regimented, deconstructionist system to contrast with the fluid hierarchy of the media. This work features 10 spreads.

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Prompted to investigate, analyze and document a community through the lens of typography, I chose the hardcore music community. Since the work was documenting a community, I wanted the layout and system to be subtle, letting the target media take center stage. However, with this, opportunities to drastically break the system with negative space and grid-breaking type were emphasized because of the regimented nature of the layout.

3

Plastik Comb  Magazine Promotional Materials

March 2026

Web Design
A series of eight promotional compositions created for Plastik Comb Magazine, an experimental typography, art, and design publication.
The brief called for three distinct approaches, analog, digital, and hybrid, and the work expands on that framework, producing a suite that collectively interrogates how the same identity can fragment and reassemble across different modes of making.



The analog pieces are built from physical collage: torn magazine ephemera, found letterforms, and cut paper layered into dense, tactile compositions where type becomes object and object becomes type. The digital works push in the opposite direction, using photographic texture, scanned documents, and original imagery as raw material for compositions that are visually distressed but structurally controlled, blurring the boundary between analog warmth and digital precision. The hybrid pieces synthesize both sensibilities, often pairing flat, designed color fields against richly textured photographic grounds, or setting clean geometric type against collaged surfaces where the seams show.

Across all eight, typography is treated as primary image-making material rather than a communication layer, letterforms fragment, overlap, invert, and crowd the frame, resisting legibility in favor of visual energy. The constraint of the Issue 10 identifier becomes a generative device, appearing as numeral, word, and abstracted form throughout the series.

4

Shelter//Shatter Mock Event Site

May 2025

Web Design
Prompted to create a website for a mock event, I sought to introduce a broader color range, depth and alternate typographic solutions to the visual language of counter culture music. Many of the buttons and interactible elements are collage media.
Access the site here.

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5

Twix Newsletter

August 2025

Typography, Lettering, Editorial
Tasked with creating a logo for the University of San Francisco Art + Architecture department newsletter, this was the final product.

Inspired by early 20th and late 19th century lettering, I sought to introduce a similar look to a newsletter covering art, events and department news. 

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In addition to creating the logo, I also was a key member working on the content of the actual newsletter, which was sent out biweekly to 200+ students and staff. Maintaining editorial consistency, visual cohesion was crucial throughout working on this newsletter. 

6

Various Poster Designs, A+A Front  Office

August 2025 – May 2026

Poster/Post Design
A collection of event flyers and promotional materials produced for the University of San Francisco's Art and Architecture departments and affiliated programs.

The work spans a range of conceptual directions. From warm, illustrative compositions with handwritten lettering to typographically driven layouts that treat type as visual texture and dimensional form. Across all pieces, a recurring concern with grid structure and information hierarchy is balanced against expressive, subversive design choices: CMYK palettes used as both color system and graphic element, typefaces selected for their subtle tensions between legibility and personality, and layouts that aim to feel simultaneously rigorous and alive. Work produced both independently with broad creative freedom and in close collaboration with faculty advisors, iterating toward clarity of message without sacrificing visual ambition.
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