I’ve found myself starting emails to people I haven’t spoken to in a while with, “hope you had a good summer,” which I guess means it’s final: summer is over. But hey, how was yours?

Mine was lovely, thanks. A particular highlight was a 10-day family holiday to Switzerland. It’s hard to overstate the power of being surrounded by so much natural beauty, and we were especially grateful to have found an Airbnb off the beaten track, set up on a hillside, overlooking a lake and the mountains. And we walked a lot. Perhaps the best (and most intense) hike was a walk to see the Ischmeer glacier, which we did on our final day. Once we reached Berghaus Bäregg, oh man, a beer never felt so well deserved.

Another nice thing about our Swiss trip was that I tried to limit my phone use by taking almost all photos on my X-T5 and deleting (not just offloading) all social media apps. It was lovely and, well, we should all do more of that, shouldn’t we? I’m ashamed to say that I’ve totally slipped back into checking all the things every five minutes or so since getting home.

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But the kids have been back at school for a couple of weeks, and I most definitely have that back-to-school feeling at the moment: the breeze is blowing a little cooler, it’s slightly harder to get up in the mornings, and I’m wearing a jumper for a good chunk of each day. That palpable sense of change is in the air.

Starting a new school year when I was a kid always felt like such a radical jump. Everyone looked a little older when they returned from the summer holidays. The school work always ramped up another notch. I wonder how many Septembers you have to live through for that feeling to really settle in? I don’t think my daughters are old enough yet to fully appreciate the cyclical cues this time of year brings, but I know I am. I’ve seen a lot of Septembers.

All these autumnal vibes got me thinking about those new students starting (or returning to) university courses over the next few weeks, and I’ve recently learned that Universal Principles of Typography is on the reading lists for various design-related courses at several universities. This is fantastic news! But of course I’d love to get it on as many reading lists as possible, so if you’re back at uni this autumn, or if you work in higher education, please do reach out (i.e. hit ‘reply’) because I can potentially hook you up with some discounted copies of the book.

(By the way, I’m currently putting together a free PDF version of the book that contains 10 selected chapters, and I’m going to offer it to anyone who signs up to this newsletter. I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to work with existing subscribers yet, but if you’d like one, just email me.)

Speaking of books, have you seen that Martina Flor has a new one out? Make It sounds like a great read, especially as Martina clearly knows a thing or two about running a hugely successful independent design business.

Make it will guide you through the process of turning your creative skill into a business, and scaling it to success. It's time to do the work you love for the people who appreciate it the most.

Viktor Baltus is launching his brand new type design course tomorrow. Enrollment for the True Italics Course is open from tomorrow until the 29th, so get in there quick — more details on typedesignclass.com/italics. I’ll also add that the first link is an affiliate link, so I’ll earn some pocket money if you sign up using it. But I’d happily promote Viktor’s courses anyway, as I already took one myself!

It’s Typotheque’s 25th birthday — many happy returns, Peter and co.! They’re hosting a party in two days’ time(!), and if you’re in or near The Hague, you should go. Wish I could.

In a pop-up exhibition at The Grey space in The Hague, Typotheque will document 25 years of its work in type design and research. The exhibition will only be open for the duration of the weekend. The event will start on Saturday at 8pm, with a DJ playing from 10pm to midnight. Entry is free and the first drink will be sponsored by Typotheque.

If you’ve been a subscriber for a while, you’ll know that I love a good typeface microsite, and the one for Helena Zhang’s Departure Mono checks all of my boxes. The website was built by Tobias Fried, and after a bit of internet stalking I discovered they’re the couple behind Phosphor Icons, too. What a team!

Did someone say microsite? Grilli Type’s microsite for their brand new typeface, GT Pantheon, is quite the thing of beauty. Look at those animations! In fact, animating between different optical sizes in a variable font like this is a great of showing people what optical sizes actually are, wouldn’t you agree?

Let’s do another microsite: Typofonderie’s latest release, Caslonian, has one. And the write-up makes for a great type history lesson, too.

Speaking of Typofonderie and type history, the foundry also recently published an essay by John D. Berry on the typography of books that’s well worth your time.

Positype — a foundry I’ve loved for a long time, and who were a very early advertiser back in my 8 Faces days — has a new website and it’s lovely. Like unreasonably lovely.

Oh, this issue is so website-y! Because I have to tell that I really, really like Delve Fonts’ new (I think?) website. I’m not sure when it was redesigned, but it’s new since I last looked, anyway. I especially love the family detail pages, such as the one for Ritualist.

All this talk of websites makes me think I should probably tell you about some I was involved with, too. Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of designing Proxima Super Nova — a microsite for Proxima Nova’s new script expansions, commissioned by The Type Founders. As well as designing the site, I also wrote its content, which mainly meant conducting interviews with the various foundries who designed the new fonts. The site was built by my talented friend Roel Nieskins and I’m happy to say that it went live over the summer (shortly after sending the last issue of this newsletter, in case you’re wondering why I’m only just mentioning it).

On a similar note, the site I designed for Ivy Foundry has just gone live! This was another TTF commission and to be honest, I can’t take too much credit, because the look-and-feel was drawn entirely from the foundry’s landing page that Jan had put together; plus, most of the work is down to those beautiful specimen graphics. I made a fairly simple design system and the exceptionally talented Ian Callaghan did all the heavy lifting by building the whole thing.

One more for you web nerds out there: I’ve skimmed — but bookmarked for later reading — The Ultimate Guide to Font Performance Optimization by Anna Monus. Looks like a very useful article.

On the subject of web fonts, who’s taken the web font survey set up by me and Jake? The results so far are really interesting, but I wanted to give this another push before collating everything. We’re interested to know where most people get their web fonts these days, and where people learn about web fonts these days. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re currently working on together at Adobe Fonts — this is just us as a couple of web font nerds curious about the state of the industry. And of course you can complete the form anonymously if you want.

My friend Emma (who created the logo on my website and the footer of this email) now has a newsletter, too! Go and subscribe to Typographic Treats.

On the subect of type-tastic newsletters, I’ve also recently subscribed to Pooja’s I Spy with my Typographic Eye. Her coverage of Indian cinema signs in the latest issue is fascinating.

Ryan Budgen’s custom typeface for the New York Botanical Garden (a modified version of Serif Gothic) is really nice, but it’s especially nice seeing it in situ on his website’s case study.

New foundry! (Well, kind of.) Julien Fincker has been designing type for a while, but only just formalised it as a foundry known as Fincker Font Cuisine. I love that his branding pays homage to his family’s history as owners of a delicatessen.

Although definitely not new — their browser extension has been “accurately identifying fonts on websites since 2016” — Fonts Ninja has recently received a new lick of paint. If I remember correctly, its original incarnation was purely about showing you what web fonts were in use on any given site, but they’ve now extended the service so that you can bookmark your favourite typefaces — “the Pinterest of typefaces” — with links to the relevant foundries’ websites to license the fonts. Really nice idea.

Let’s all just take a moment to sit here and feel incredibly envious — once again — about TypeTogether’s latest annual retreat. I featured last year’s in the newsletter at the time, but hey, let’s do it again. What a wonderful way to run a fully remote type foundry!

Francis has just released a new typeface called Jazzman. Like much of Francis’ work, it evokes strong 60s jazz vibes.

Gatwick is a brand new typeface from Pangram Pangram, and I’m very much enjoying the naming of its Jumbo / Jet / Glider optical sizes.

Camelion, designed by Sandrine Nugue and released by Ohno, is a brand new upright italic.

Remember a few issues back when I was talking about the popularity of ‘mix’ or ‘hybrid‘ fonts? Art Groofontein has released his take on this genre, Argile Fusion. This one stands out to me, mainly because there’s contrast in the ‘Syrup’ variant, whereas the trend thus far has been to stay relatively monolinear. I love this little animated promo video, too.

Grilli Type (oh, them again!) recently completed a bespoke typeface for Figma. You can read about the design process both on the foundry’s blog and on Figma’s blog.

I’m very happy to announce that I’m teaching a two-day How to Master Typography workshop in Zagreb, Croatia, this November. Let me know if you’re planning to attend! I ran a typography workshop there six years ago and had such a great time. Here’s the blurb from their site:

Every seasoned designer knows that typography is more than just choosing fonts; it’s a critical element of design that impacts readability, user experience, and brand perception. And in marketing especially, first impressions are everything. The right typography can convey professionalism, trust, and clarity while inconsistent typography can dilute your message and weaken your brand identity. Understanding typography’s nuances — from typeface selection to licensing and optical sizes — enables you to create visually engaging, cohesive, and persuasive materials to reach the goal of every campaign ever: capture attention, communicate your message clearly, and reinforce your brand’s value in the competitive market.

And although it’s a way off, I think I’m going to run the third instalment of my pop-up newsletter, Notes from a different (type)setting for this Zagreb trip. As a bunch of you now know, the idea is that I run one of these whenever I do a bit of type-adjacent traveling, and I document the journeys, the event, and whatever comes to mind. But the important part is that there are no online archives and the database of email addresses is deleted after the pop-up has run; the idea is it’s all about being the moment. So if you feel like coming along to Zagreb with me this November, please head over to the signup form.

Have you seen the 1 pixel wide font? It’s a thing and… it works! Kind of. Cool proof of concept, though. (Apologies for the NSFW URL slug.)

The Kernference — the three-day virtual event run by Goodtype — is happening once again! Early bird tickets are available until the 23rd, then they go up by $100. I’d include this in the newsletter anyway, but for full transparency, that’s an affiliate link and I’ll get a little financial kick-back if you sign up from it.

Instead of screaming into a pillow every time I see someone misuse an apostrophe, I decided to channel that, er, energy into making a (hopefully) helpful post. This one’s more of a copywriting tip than a typography tip, but hey, that’s a grey area I’m happy to wade through. You can find it on Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, and LinkedIn (not X, because Musk).

Mathieu Triay emailed me to tell me about a new project he’s just built for the BBC R&D department called Orbit. It’s fantastic — using music from unsigned artists that’s been uploaded to BBC Introducing, it allows you to find related music based on what tracks you like, and you judge it purely on the music — no track names, artist names, or images. Oh, and if you’re wondering about the type connection, it’s that Mathieu is a type designer on the side of his job as a software engineer, and he’s behind typefaces like Bricolage Grotesque and Marvin Visions — the latter being the typeface designed for his short-lived but wonderful sci-fi magazine Visions. (Bring back Visions!)

Lastly, please do consider adding your approximate location to my Readers of Typographic & Sporadic map. After I mentioned this in the last issue, 17 of you added yourselves, which is wonderful, but at the time of writing that’s less than 1% of everyone currently subscribed to the list, so don’t be shy: pop yourself on the map!