I released Lucky Ape on October 27, 1997. The typeface was inspired by my experience working at a lottery booth in Oakville, Ontario. I wanted to create a design that resembled the rollers on a slot machine. To develop it, I scanned and traced a Clarendon typeface from a catalog and added symbols commonly associated with slot machines, such as cherries and lemons. The name referred to the way gambling devices exploit chance and psychology.
I originally distributed Lucky Ape with a free commercial-use desktop license. In August 2020, I placed it in the public domain.