This issue’s been in the works for a long time, and without wanting to sound like a child who’s reeling off excuses to their teacher instead of handing in their homework…

• I was teaching a workshop in Zagreb, Croatia, and running the latest edition of my pop-up newsletter, Notes from a different (type)setting, while I was there (huge thanks to the 100 or so of you who came along for the ride — that was really fun);
• shortly after I returned, we had to deal with our house nearly flooding and an (apparently unrelated) small sinkhole opening up right outside;
• the day after that, we lost our dear old dog Ozzy;
• I figured there was no point sending out a newsletter amidst the inbox-insulting chaos of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday season (it felt like some brands were emailing me multiple times a day about their deals this year — insane);
• plus, you know, general end-of-year, brain-melting chaos.

The net result of this much-delayed issue is that I’ve collected a ridiculous number of links. If I included them all, I’d be bombarding you with an issue that, at best, makes for a gigantic scroll, and, at worst, triggers your email provider to truncate the message and force you to open it in an interface inexplicably not redesigned since 2007. (I’m looking at you, Gmail.)

So I’m going to try something new: I’m going to distribute all of these type-tastic and type-adjacent links over three issues, and I’m going to send them out to you gradually: one today, one just before Christmas, and one before we’re all back at work in January (probably). Consider putting this issue (and maybe the forthcoming ones) aside until you have a quiet moment, perhaps with a tea, coffee, or even a little tipple in hand, put on your favourite festive playlist, light the fire, and let’s sit down together to ease into the holiday period in the only way one can: by looking at fonts.

I should probably start with the most time-dependent announcement: I’m doing an Instagram Live chat with Silverstag Type Foundry this coming Tuesday (17th December) @ 08:00 PST / 11:00 EST / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET.

If you can join in live — simply head to the foundry’s Instagram page at that time — that would be amazing; but, if you can’t, I believe the whole thing will be recorded and released as a standalone episode of Alen’s podast, The Type Convo, shortly after.

Alphabettes Soup: 2015–2025 is a forthcoming book, to be published by Bikini Books, that celebrates a decade of Alphabettes’ work.

The book blends key articles from the Alphabettes platform with original essays, exploring intersections between culture, language, business practices, technology, and type. It also includes interviews with Alphabettes members, visual histories, and reflections on past and ongoing initiatives. More than an anthology, Alphabettes Soup is a dynamic collection of voices and stories. The book is conceived as a type specimen, showcasing over 100 typefaces designed by women and non-binary individuals. Aimed at challenging dominant narratives in type history and contemporary practice, Alphabettes Soup seeks to inspire future generations to create their own decentralized design communities.

They’re currently funding and you can donate as an individual via PayPal, or reach out to the publisher to get involved as a sponsor.

From one crowdfunded type book to another: Type Archived is currently crowdfunding (and has now passed the 100% mark) on Volume’s website. Really interested model Volume have. I hadn’t actually realised this is how the publisher works — and I didn’t even realise they’re the ones behind Toshi’s book, Arcade Game Typography.

I’ve started collecting some of my current favourites in the Adobe Fonts catalogue using our new Libraries feature, with the idea being that I can easily share them with you here. (No-one at Adobe has asked me to mention this, by the way — I think it’s genuinely useful.) Here’s my first library! Handily, you can hit the “Add all fonts” button to immediately sync them to your computer if you have the CC app installed.

I’m adding specific weights / styles — rather than whole families — to these libraries because I want them to be shareable. If you want to add the whole family, I’m sure you know how to do that. I’ll post the next library in — you guessed it — the next issue. The majority of the selections in this issue are from the foundry Resistenza.

Flexible Typesetting, the wonderful book written by my friend and Adobe colleague Tim Brown, is now available for free, following the closure of the book’s publisher A Book Apart. Tim is one of those people who makes you feel smarter just by having a conversation with him and I can absolutely guarantee your typographic IQ will be increased after you read this book.

While we’re on a web typography sort of theme, I’m very pleased to see that Clearleft’s Rich Rutter is still doing talks on the subject. His latest, Fluid typography (and its role in design systems), given at the recent State of the Browser conference in London, is well worth 30 minutes of your time, especially if you’re new to fluid type scales. (Not that you are, of course, because you’ve already read about them in my book, right? Right?!?)

And speaking of Rich, I noticed he’s introduced TODS — a typographic and OpenType default stylesheet. Details on his blog.

I’d not come across Narrow Type until Jamie sent me their beautiful site (look at their stunning family detail pages, like this one for Banter Grotesk), so I’m adding them to my mental list of ‘new’ foundries to keep my eye on.

Chicago Kare is a faithful recreation of Susan Kare’s original design for the Chicago pixel font on macOS by Duane King.

My mate Chris shared his new favourite pangram on Mastodon: “Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.” I love it.

Alanna Munro has a beautiful new website and she’s released a new typeface, Stornoway, to mark the occasion.

Inspired by the charm of Scotch Roman faces and Dwiggins’ Caledonia, Stornoway brings the style a bit further into the modern era with a higher x-height, flared terminals, and no serifs.

It comes in two optical sizes: Stornoway Low is a low contrast style that works well for body text.

For a while now I’ve been reluctant to use GIFs in this newsletter because it’s usually impossible to get them down to a decent filesize, and that’d harm deliverability. So I was relieved to discover that the one below, created by Parachute Type to promote their new typeface PT Grecia, was a mere 240k. And the reason I wanted to include it is that I think it does a fantastic job of illustrating how penmanship still informs contemporary type design:

There’s a brand new independent type foundry from Berlin: Show Me Fonts. I’m a big fan of their name. It helps that their nascent type catalogue is impressive, too.

You probably already know about Kelli Anderson’s Alphabet in Motion, which has been successfully funded on Kickstarter. That’s putting it lightly: the project’s funding goal was $50k and it’s raised over $260k — and rightfully so! This is insane. The level of detail — and, dare I say, obsession (in a good way) is off the charts. Unfortunately the funding window has obviously now closed, so you’ve missed a chance to back it, but hopefully there’ll be more copies available. If nothing else, go and watch the campaign video anyway and be amazed by the pop-up book of your dreams.

Somehow I’ve only just discovered Font Review Journal, a project by Bethany Heck. (I’ve loved Bethany’s other work for years — how did I miss this?) You can file this under ‘Elliot, this really is not news’ because sadly the site hasn’t been updated since 2019, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. These reviews go deep, and for that reason alone I recommend it as a wonderful resource if you’re looking to add depth to your understanding of type.

Please allow me to leave you with a little plug: if you’d like to buy my book, Universal Principles of Typography, as a Christmas present — and you’d like to buy it directly from me, with the option of me signing it for the recipient — then please reply to this email ASAP. If you’re in the UK or Europe, I can probably get it to you in time. Maybe even the US if you reply to me today. Warning: it’s too big for most stockings.

If you’ve made it this far, but managed to skip the opening paragraph, here’s a quick reminder that this issue is short(ish) because part 2 is coming just before Christmas, and part 3 most likely just before work starts again. Hopefully I’ll see you on Tuesday for the Instagram Live chat with Silverstag Type Foundry!