I designed some festive cards

Please forgive the shameless plug right upfront, but I finally realised a career-long dream and actually designed myself some cards for the festive season. I know, I should probably get out more. But hey, they’re here, they’re printed on GF Smith card that’s made from recycled coffee cups, and you can also buy a pack of 4 to send out to your friends and family. If you’re interested in knowing more, I’ve just — just! — published a blog post with all of the details. You (probably) heard it here first, folks.

Mr. Cup’s 2023 letterpress calendar

Moving swiftly on from the end of this year to the beginning of the next, now’s definitely the time to start thinking about 2023, and the prolific Mr. Cup has got us covered. The latest edition of his famous letterpress calendar was successfully funded on Kickstarter (obviously) and is now available to order from his website.

GT Academy

Swiss type foundry Grilli Type have been hard at work posting GT Academy lessons on the “Guides” part of their Instagram account. Designed to answer the question “where do you begin when you want to design your own typeface?” these are wonderful little type design primers.

Is everyone on Typo.Social yet?

Mastodon’s a bit weird. It’s a little tricky to get your head around how it works. There aren’t that many people on it. It’s kind of like… Twitter in the old days? Personally, I’m not leaving Twitter just yet, but it really does feel like the ship is starting to sink, and it’s lovely seeing so many familiar faces pop up on Mastodon’s Typo.Social instance. Head on over there — or indeed any Mastodon instance, which initially really confused me — and say hi!

Typespace app

I’ve been beta testing Rajshree Saraf’s experimental Typespace app for iOS lately, which combines AR and type to create some pretty interesting artwork, with plenty of customisation options. If you’d like to join the beta, too, head over to her signup form.

SideNote typeface

My mate Jamie Clarke — the other type guy in our village — recently released a new version of his website, and with it, a new typeface: SideNote! I’ve written in the past about how hard it is to find a handwritten-esque font that balances friendliness with utility, and you’ll be pleased to know that SideNote delivers.

More Google Fonts Knowledge content

A couple of weeks ago, we — that is, the team at Google Fonts Knowledge — dropped a whole load of new content, which I outlined in a brief blog post. I’ve been especially enjoying Nick Sherman’s articles on variable fonts, Darrell Penta’s spotlight on the creation of Hangeul, and John Boardley’s additions to our History of type collection. Our final “knowledge drop” of the year is just around the corner, so you’d best get through these ones soon!