The Weekly Typographic

Maximizing Marketing: Taking Your Type to the People There’s a bit of everything in this week’s newsletter and chats; a super detailed behind the scenes on an iconic rebrand, some handy web design typesetting tips, a case study of alternative design education options (and the importance of practice), and a cool look into some left-handed calligraphic design. This week’s nerd alert was inspired by Commercial Type’s recent interesting marketing/advertising approaches. There was a wheat-pasting campaign around New York City, and some rather bright placards popping up around a European cycling event. The natural habitat of typical font-purchasers and design enthusiasts? Maybe not. A good example of thinking laterally about your marketing? Maybe…? We also talk about some of the more ‘traditional’ approaches of type marketing, but we’d love to know if you’ve seen any other really creative / alternative approaches to marketing of typefaces/foundries. You know the deal; if you’ve seen something cool on the internets

An Interview with Libbie Bischoff, Founder of Type Du Nord We’re not going to lie, one of the things that gives us the most energy is talking to type designers / people working in the type and design industry. Our cups are overflowing this week after a delightful conversation with Libbie Bischoff. We spotted Libbie’s amazing 52 Fonts project early this year and were blown away by her dedication and persistence to putting out a new font every week. We couldn’t wait to get her on the podcast to talk about why she chose to do this(!), how she structured her design process, and how she stuck to it. She shares all of these juicy details and more, including the process of transitioning into running her foundry (Type Du Nord) off the back of this project. We are full of admiration. There’s also some things for you to read, including a heap of recent font releases, a stack of new sources for free fonts (woo!), a cool typography project happening as part of SVA’s 100 Days project, and an example of a foundry using DAL

DALL-E 2: Are we all out of jobs? It’s so good to be back in recording mode, and this week we took it to the next level by recording IN THE SAME PLACE! Olivia took a lil road trip to see Micah and they recorded together. Cute. This week we’re talking about DALL-E; what it is, why it’s useful, why it’s not, the things people are worried about, and why we’re not worried about (all) of the worries. This week’s podcast cover image was generated by DALL-E… you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what the prompt was though. We’re also talking (/ranting) about genderless design and also an interesting open-source decision from Microsoft. Don’t forget to grab a ticket to this weekend’s workshop (it starts tomorrow!) all about bettering your vectoring skills - super useful beyond just type design. As usual, if you can’t make it live you’ll receive the recording… but only if you sign up! You know the deal; if you’ve seen something cool on the internets that you think we should know about, you can let us know o

It's Season 3, Baby! FRIENDS! WE'RE BACK! And not only are we back on the podcast, but we're 'back to school' as we have a new workshop happening later this month with the wonderful Aline Kaori. On the podcast Micah and Olivia are talking about what we've been enjoying this summer, what we're seeing around the type & design world, and some sneak peeks into what's coming up in season 3 of the Weekly Typographic podcast; interviews, deep dives, trips into the future, and some fun surprises... TBH we're amazed this episode isn't three hours long, we've got so much to chat about after our break. As usual, there's also some articles for you to enjoy that we're chatting about on the podcast. Including a look into the history of Faux Hebrew fonts, the future of web fonts, the under-appreciated use of type in healthcare settings, and a fun type + textiles project. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Season 2 wrap It’s the end of season 2! There’s exactly zero rhyme or reason to when we call time on a season (see the fact season 1 was about three months, and season 2 has been over two years), but we’re taking a break for a few weeks over the summer and will be back with a refresh/glowup*. But, wipe those tears away our friends, we’ll still be dropping into your inbox each week with your usual fix of type and design news and reviews. We’re seeing out season 2 with a throwback of our old episodes where we just talk about the links. To be honest, we probably could have just talked about the first link for an hour; the new Instagram branding. Strap yourself in for some thoughts on this. In less controversial topics, we’re also talking about some handy font analysis tools, the ‘trend’ of anti-design, looking at some lovely type Inso from a 36 days of type project, and enjoying a new (to us) nerdy resource about the history behind logos. As usual, if you’ve seen something cool on the internets that you think we

An interview with Juan Villanueva We’re just going to say it. We love Juan Villanueva. So we’re especially happy to have him joining us on the podcast this week for a chat about type design (of course), the changing landscape and opportunities in type design education, and his multitude of roles and contributions to the type community. There’s heaps of good stuff in this interview, and we hope Juan is your new typographic BFF afterwards too. Your weekend reading includes some handy tips for freelancers, a niche design collection of rave club membership cards, a typesetting game, and a new playground for experimental fonts and font technology. Juicy. As usual, if you’ve seen something cool on the internets that you think we should know about, you can let us know on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Web3: what we've learned so far We’ve been teasing this topic for MONTHS and we’ve finally pulled together all our learnings so far about web3/NFTs to make an episode. This will be part 1, as after our summer break we’re going to bring you an interview with an expert and/or creator in this field to dive deeper into it. So think of this week as your amuse-bouche, covering the potential for web3 as creators, but also some of the (significant) problems with it. The other fun articles we’re chatting about include handy UX/UI tips, beautiful Arabic book design, and the specifics of merchandise design. As usual, if you’ve seen something cool on the internets that you think we should know about, you can let us know on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Episode 100! We did it!! We made it to episode 100! We’re taking a little trip down memory lane this week and sharing some of the origin stories that you might not know about your favorite(!) type and design news podcast. And you have to listen to hear a clip from the first ever Weekly Typographic episode that Micah and Olivia recorded IN A CAFE. We cannot. Not gonna lie, this is a very wholesome episode. Along with looking into the past, we are also sharing news and links from the present. We’ve got yet another outstanding microsite from Grilli Type, a funky design/type project that tackles emotions, some actual science exploring ageist fonts, and a tasteful way-finding project. There’s something for everyone. As usual, if you’re seen something cool on the internets that you think we should know about you can let us know on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Designing a custom for for UI It’s another special interview episode! This week type designers Eben Sorkin and Mirko Velimirovic join us for a chat. They are two of the creators behind Spline Sans; a new grotesque sans serif family purpose-built for UI interfaces. We ask Eben and Mirko all the deets behind creating a UI-focused typeface, some of the experiments they ran along the way, and the collaboration process. It’s a nerdy and detailed conversation, we think you’ll enjoy it too. Check out Spline Sans on Google Fonts!

The realities of open source This week’s newsletter is pretty much one big ball of wholesome goodness. There’s a fun retro project, a super detailed article about variable fonts, a designer shaking up the Arabic type education space, and a wonderful short film about an icon of hand lettering / sign writing. In the nerd alert we’re getting into the guts of what it really means to exist in the open source space. The highs, the challenges, the fun, and the opportunities. Olivia grills Micah on all of the open source things, and we’re also putting out a little call out to the community for some extra help in running the back-end of the open source part of the League, so make sure you listen for more deets. As usual, if you spot anything cool on the internets that you’d like us to chat about, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

An interview with Chris Skillern of Tulsey Type One of the things we really love about doing this podcast is the opportunity to chat to type designers, and especially newer designers who are doing their own thing with type design. This week we’re delighted to chat with Chris Skillern, from Tulsey Type. You might recognise Chris’ name from the TypeWknd21 round up episodes last year, as we really enjoyed his talk about the Cherokee syllabary. We catch up with Chris to find out about his experience completing the online Type West course, his tips for creativity and type design, and what he’s working on now. We’ve also got some links for you to enjoy too; an interesting font and browser extension project focused on low vision legibility, a logo that redraws itself, a cool resource for designers impacted by the pandemic, and a cool tiny design project. As usual, if you spot anything cool on the internets that you’d like us to chat about, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll find us @theleagueof on both platfo

A point in time: the history of type sizing We’re back to some nerdy nerdiness in this week’s episode, featuring a nerd alert all about the weird and wonderful history of type sizing systems. If you want to be able to tell your pica from your bourgeois, then make sure you wrap your ears around this week’s episode. All bases are covered in week’s articles where you’ll find a bit of branding, a bit of trend-spotting, a bit of creative collaboration, and a bit of designer behind-the-scenes. Fun! As usual, if you spot anything cool on the internets that you’d like us to chat about, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links Find out more at http://podcast.theleagueofmoveabletype.com

Five Indie Foundries to Follow It’s Good Friday, and whether you celebrate the Easter holiday or not, we thought we’d use the long weekend as a good excuse to celebrate some indie foundries that you should put on your radar. We’ve each picked a foundry that we’re into at the moment, and are talking about them on the podcast. We also asked our friend Tré Seals what foundries he’s enjoying following at the moment, and true to form he sent us a huge list! If you’re a member, you’ll see more of Tré’s suggestions in the member fonts section of the newsletter this week. As usual, if you spot anything cool on the internets that you’d like us to chat about, or want to alert us to any indie foundries you’re admiring right now, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram, you’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links Find out more at http://podcast.theleagueofmoveabletype.com

Type Design School Round Up Lots of nerdy goodness this week, and don’t worry, no April Fools gags here - just good, honest typographic fun. We’re looking at a cool open source tool that fixes some of the pain of ragging your web type, and finding out about a designer with a background in graffiti and who uses this skill in their typographic and design work. We’re also reading about two really cool revival projects; one out of France presented by the awesome folk at Velveteen, and one by Brandon Nickerson, which was an accidental typeface born out of a logo project. For this week’s Nerd Alert we’re chatting about type education. In this first part of a few conversations we want to have about this topic we’re looking at formal type education schools. We’re talking about some of the ‘big’ names you often hear thrown around (Type @ Cooper, TypeWest, Type Paris, Reading, and The Hague), and talking about the differences between them, and why a formal program might be a good idea for someone. We’re going to follow

Font Pairing Pitfalls We’re hopping all over pop culture, tech, and some nerdy education this week. We’re looking at a very cool new free tool to create your own experimental typography, some intricate design changes of Google’s Canary icon, the typographic beauty and attention in Wes Anderson’s latest film, and a very informative video lecture about type pairing and categorization. Plus, if you listen to the podcast you’ll find our how going on dates can help improve your description of typographic terms for non-type nerds. We know you come here for the typography content, but you stay for the life advice. For this week’s Nerd Alert we’re joined by Oliver Schöndorfer from Pimp My Type who’s sharing the three pitfalls on pairing fonts that he sees people trip up on all the time (we were nodding furiously at all of them). This is a little teaser in advance of our next workshop, happening over the first weekend of April, where Oliver will share even more juicy details on taking the pain away from pairing. You’l

Trendy Type All your dreams have come true. We’re doing a workshop about pairing AND we’re doing it with the wonderful Oliver Schöndorfer. That’s right, the topic that drops into our inbox the MOST is how to get better at pairing type, and we couldn’t think of a better person to partner with for this topic than Oliver from Pimp My Type. It’s happening over the first weekend of April, and there’ll be juicy information plus a chance to practice some pairing and get feedback from Oliver if you join us live. So much good stuff. We’re feeling trendy this week so are talking about some looks that are emerging and evolving in design / typography at the moment. Starting with Monotype’s 2022 trend report (make sure you listen to the podcast to get a sense of how underwhelming we found this year’s report), and then looking at the 80s revival happening in brand and campaign work. We then cheer ourselves up by looking at some super inspiring indie foundries from around the world, and an upcoming educational event being r

Book Design Storytime: From Front Cover to Back cover Friends! We’ve got another workshop happening soon. No spoilers yet, but keep your peepers peeled next week for more juicy deets. Clue: it’s a topic that people request in our inbox all. the. time.

Geography Typography Whoop! We had a great workshop with Thomas Jockin earlier this week talking everything about the pitch. We not only talked about pitching custom type to your clients or your boss, but got into pricing, positioning, and turning existing clients / relationships into ongoing clients. Good stuff. We’ve got plenty of fun stuff in this week’s podcast episode (and not just Micah and Olivia’s attempts at British and Australian accents). We’re going around the world in five typefaces as we look at type design examples where designers have had to design a typeface that becomes part of the visual identity for a city, or even a whole country! So many great examples, and we love it when studios/designers do detailed write ups of their process. As usual, if you spot anything cool on the web that you’d like us to chat about, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram, you’ll find us @theleagueof on both platforms. One of the weekly member perks is a little selection of handpicked fonts we find for you. This week

How to start a revival project It’s almost time! Next week we’re talking custom type pitching at our next workshop with guest instructor Thomas Jockin. Thomas is joining us to share his lessons, structures, and processes for successful custom type design pitches, and we reckon that these lessons would be useful for other design disciplines too, not just custom type. Don’t miss out, register for your space and if you can’t join us live, you’ll get a link to the recording afterwards. We’re also talking about a super unique reverse contrast stencil type project by Weekly Typographic listener Sophia, getting very nerdy about the math of size specific spacing, and sharing a fun typography event that friend-of-the-League Sarah Hyndman is running next week. Lots of fun stuff! And we’re rounding out with a nerd alert about revival projects; what are they, what sources can you use, why should you do one, and where to start. Olivia and Micah share their experiences with revival projects, including some of their favorit

The business of custom type ICYMI we’ve got a super interesting new workshop happening right at the end of this month, all about the biz-niss side of custom type design. And we’ve asked our esteemed friend Thomas Jockin to join us to share his lessons, structures, and processes for successful custom type design pitches. Thomas is joining us on this week’s nerd alert to share a few of his insights (without any workshop spoilers) and give you a little flavor of what to expect in a couple of weeks. Make sure you register to join us! In this week’s articles we’ve got some exciting news from a project we talked about last year, which is working to update the Unicode to include indigenous Canadian language support. We’re also discussing whether a font can be racist, about whether it’s worth changing the typefaces on your website, and sharing a little bit of eye-candy design inspo from some nice restaurant identity designs. If you spot anything cool on the web that you’d like us to chat about, hit us up on Twitter o