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typographica.org
Typographica
@typographica.org
2.1K followers 160 following 7.8K posts
A review of #lettering and #typography. Since 2002. Posts by editor @stewf.com.

Primarily on Mastodon with many from the type community: https://typo.social/@typographica
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typographica.org
Typographica @typographica.org · Jul 11
Bluesky is a good alternative to X for the general public and some specific topics, especially politics. But for many communities and fields, a critical mass remains exclusively on Mastodon. Type designers and fans, for instance, have their own server with 679 active users: typo.social/directory.
typo.social
Welcome to Typo.social! This is a Mastodon instance open to any typo and type enthusiastic. We are offering this service out of sheer courtesy without being held responsible for any disadvantages.
typo.social
typographica.org
Highly professional adaptive reuse.

Pee Wee’s Pizza, San Leandro, CA.

2009 www.flickr.com/photos/tspau...
2025 maps.app.goo.gl/8sXiQKst6bVL...

#Signs #Neon #NeonSigns #Oakland #SanLeandro
Photo by Tom Spaulding of a large neon sign reading “Pee Wee’s Pizza / Coast to Coast” with the head of a chef on top. The same sign cabinet from the previous photo but with neon removed and text replaced with a Papa John’s logo and the chef’s head blacked out and replaced with a phone number.
December 22, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by Typographica
letterformarchive.org
From the Collection: Sylvie Vodáková’s Book Covers for Květy Poezie. Meet the Czech designer who shaped how generations of readers encountered poetry. A new blog post by Tanya George. letterformarchive.org/news/sylvie-...

#Lettering #BookCovers #Poetry #GraphicDesign #Illustration #CzechDesign
From the Collection: Sylvie Vodáková’s Book Covers for Květy Poezie
Meet the Czech designer who shaped how generations of readers encountered poetry.
letterformarchive.org
December 21, 2025 at 2:22 AM
typographica.org
Want to use the Adobe Fonts service but don’t want to pay $70/month for Creative Cloud? You can subscribe to InCopy for $5/month (which includes Adobe Fonts): www.adobe.com/plans/creati...

Just learned this from Tom Phinney: typedrawers.com/discussion/c...
Adobe plans and pricing for creative professionals
www.adobe.com
December 15, 2025 at 7:34 AM
typographica.org
“For a division that promised better services, the NDS’s first releases are remarkably devoid of services altogether. Of the four (soon to be five) public-facing projects associated with NDS, none meaningfully connect users to a government system where any real task can be completed.”
goodspeed.bsky.social Elizabeth Goodspeed @goodspeed.bsky.social · 12d
I wrote a piece for @archpaper.com about 18F, the National Design Studio, and the insidiousness of “rebranding” government services instead of improving them. Thanks to my editors for letting me use the phrase “tread on me daddy” in an architecture publication 🫡
www.archpaper.com/2025/12/nati...
www.archpaper.com
December 15, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Reposted by Typographica
jillegage.bsky.social
If the State Dept doesn’t want to use Calibri or Times New Roman, they could always opt for Satanick, an 1890s knockoff of William Morris’s Troy by ATF
Title page of a type specimen for ATF’s Satanick, a semi-gothic typeface. It features a red “S” along with William Morris-style leafy flourishes Advertisement with the type specimen that says The Satanick Specimen is printed with the Nathan German Printing Inks for which the American Type founders Co. is United States agent. The ad features a woodcut initial and a floral flourish
December 12, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Reposted by Typographica
lucasfonts.com
Ditching Calibri as a “wasteful diversity” font is both hilarious and sad.
Here's a quick reminder of what Calibri actually is and why it matters. (1/2)
On the top is the photo of Luc(as) de Groot, typedesigner, and Calibri creator. The text follows: I designed Calibri to make reading on computer screens easier. In 2006 Microsoft chose it to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite, for good reasons: Times creates visual noise on typical office screens, which can be problematic for people with impaired vision, such as many older users. Calibri, on the other hand, performs exceptionally well at small sizes and across a wide range of resolutions. The LucasFonts logo is at the bottom. A screenshot of the comparison of the Calibri and Times New Roman at 11 points on the typical office displays. The text follows: On a typical office screen, the serifs of Times New Roman introduce visual disturbance and make the text difficult to read. The LucasFonts logo is at the bottom.
December 11, 2025 at 5:22 PM
typographica.org
The State Dept. font story is pretty silly, but I like that it gives the public a chance to learn more about a craft they encounter every day. Here’s the designer of Calibri, Luc(as) de Groot, on CNN talking parameters and spindly serifs. video.snapstream.net/Play/2UPcOhf...
What We Know With Max Foster - Luc de Groot
Powered by SnapStream Cloud Sharing
video.snapstream.net
December 11, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Typographica
jectives.com
Flip-through book review of Stephen Cole's modern classic, The Anatomy of Type 👀 @stewf.com #typography
www.youtube.com
December 10, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Typographica
letterformarchive.org
Tezzo Suzuki calendars are on their way to the Archive! This year features 228 new numeral designs. reorder now to get yours by the end of the year. letterformarchive.org/shop/tezzo-s...
Tezzo Suzuki Calendar 26 (2026)
A nonprofit center for inspiration, education, and community in the graphic arts.
letterformarchive.org
December 10, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Typographica
typofonderie.com
We re-publish this article initially written in 2000 by Evert Bloemsma (1958-2005), and never published to our knowledge. Evert discusses the challenges and considerations involved in typeface design:
➽ typofonderie.com/gazette/look...
December 9, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Typographica
goodspeed.bsky.social
I collaborated with CMYK and Angela Kirkwood on the redesign of cult classic game Magical Athlete! I worked on the brand identity, art direction, and all the graphic design for components like cards & tokens. Now ask me how much math I had to do to make an evenly spaced game board with 31 spaces...
December 8, 2025 at 8:37 PM
typographica.org
A deep bow to @kellianderson.bsky.social for the astonishing ambition of Alphabet in Motion. My favorite pop-up mechanisms are those that clearly explain principles of type design that are difficult to show in static images: #KelliAnderson #PopupBooks #TypeDesign #Lettering
A pop-up book spread titled “a Sleight of Type Design”. Interactive overlays demonstrate the unequal shapes in letterforms that otherwise appear equal at first glance.
November 23, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Typographica
slye.bsky.social
Last night’s opening reception of “Piet Zwart: Brand Architect” was a great beginning for a great exhibition at @letterformarchive.org. Well worth a visit!
Part of Letterform Archive’s new Piet Zwart exhibition. Part of Letterform Archive’s new Piet Zwart exhibition. Rob Saunders giving a tour to attendees of the opening of Letterform Archive’s new Piet Zwart exhibition.
November 23, 2025 at 5:32 PM
typographica.org
Still my favorite photo and caption in any book ever. (Muriel Cooper, by Daniel Reinfurt and Robert Wiesenberger. MIT Press, 2017.) #MurielCooper
Photo of a group of people looking something on a bench or table. All are men in business attire except a woman in a knit cardigan with her bare foot resting casually on the bench. Caption: “Muriel Cooper in conversation with unidentified males, c. 1972”.
November 23, 2025 at 7:54 PM
typographica.org
If you’re at all interested in type history, the Stephen O. Saxe fellowship at RIT is a great opportunity to dig into one of the deepest troves of specimens & foundry documents. I’d love to see more of his collection surfaced through research. www.rit.edu/carycollecti...

#TypeDesign #TypeSpecimens
Summer Research Fellowships | Cary Graphic Arts Collection | RIT
www.rit.edu
November 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM
typographica.org
Matthew Butterick (lawyer, type designer, and author of Typography for Lawyers) has opened a law firm focused on AI litigation: buttericklaw.com
Butterick Law PC / pioneering AI litigation
Butterick Law PC / pioneering AI litigation
buttericklaw.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by Typographica
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
This is a 52-pound 9000+ page accordion-bound artist’s book of Donald Trump’s lies, conceived, printed, and bound by Jill and Ray Nichols of @leadgraffiti.bsky.social in Delaware. Each of the 9000 pages has the text (per the Washington Post) of one or more of Trump’s lies; none are repeated.
The 9000-page 52-pound book, entitled LIAR, LIAR, on display today at the University of Maryland. Sample interior page. Front of a postcard describing the project. Photo of postcard describing project: “9,296 pages document 3o,573 false or misleading claims by Donald Trump from his first day in office, 2017, to his final day on January 20, 2020, when Joe Biden was sworn in as the country's next president. All that verbiage is s3" thick, weighs 52 pounds, and it started like this. The disolution of the Delaware College of Art & Design, to whom Lead Graffti had donated 1oos of design books over the past decade, brought an invitation to redaim them. We found a few, which brought us another interesting find — a blank Coppic-stitched book with a spine about 36 inches wide bound by Ema Ishii Holdredge for her BEA show at the Corcoran School of Art in 2008. That book haunted us for several weeks, and we decided it was too audacious not to give ita Lead Graffiti shot. For a while, we pondered how to fill a several thousand-page book with content that made a serious point. The notion of the presidential untruths came to mind, so maybe there was some documentation we could "borrow?" Sure enough, in a few Safari minutes, we found a downloadable PDE from The Washington Post that we could massage into a typographic form we could use. We were off. Ray undertook the ink-jet printing of the pages, folding and inserting the red cover-weight sheets for structural support, and gathering and punching the folds for sewing. Jill did 99.8% of the sewing. At a 3o2 United gathering, we encouraged attendees to give the book a stroke. Shown at right is the head of the Delaware ACLU, who has excellent technique. LEAD GRAFFITI | NEWARK, DELAWARE| LEADGRAFFITI.COM|RAY@LEADGRAIETTI.COM”
November 15, 2025 at 7:09 PM
typographica.org
Also, you get a comma. And a capital S which is usually a more useful test than T.

Shorter phrases for font testing: library.typographica.org/short-phrase...
November 15, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Typographica
starshapedpress.bsky.social
Wrote about the complex process of building a 7-color print from metal type & ornament. www.starshaped.com/blog/2025/11...
Close up of a print called Urbs in Horto (text is in a tree form in print). Multiple colors create a modular take on the city of Chicago.
November 9, 2025 at 3:47 PM
typographica.org
IBM Selectric typewriters have appeared in countless movies and TV shows, but no individual machine will ever be seen as many times as Stephen J. Cannell’s. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3s...
All of the Stephen J Cannell Logos
YouTube video by OjoCrítico.com
www.youtube.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:07 AM
Reposted by Typographica
goodspeed.bsky.social
Thank you to the folks at the @flickrfdn.bsky.social for asking me some truly fantastic questions about archiving, the ephemeral nature of digital archiving, and what I've learned from working with Brits. (As ever, Flickr remains the best website on the internet!!!) www.flickr.org/a-chat-with-...
A chat with Elizabeth Goodspeed, Casual Archivst - Flickr Foundation
www.flickr.org
November 3, 2025 at 1:24 AM
typographica.org
Erik Marinovich & Lucas Sharp’s new Rotina is very fun. www.sharptype.co/typefaces/ro... I like how Erik brings his lettering instincts into his type design.

The Swash, a refined improvement on 1970s Helvetica & Univers Flairs (fontsinuse.com/typefaces/16...), is what the promos feature most,
Rotina Swash. “New York City” logo set in in red with a purple 3D shade. The type is a neo-grotesque sans with swashes on caps and ending letters. Univers Flair. Specimen of a glyph set for a neo-grotesque sans typeface with many swash alternates.
November 5, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Typographica
infonta.bsky.social
Secretly here — as I've got only a few followers so far :)
Wrote it in preparation for a talk.
Warning — it is slow, real time.

#calligraphy #demo #intersections #home #brushlettering #veraevstafieva #unique #cmyk
November 4, 2025 at 11:28 AM
typographica.org
An IG type specimen for a one-off display face by a young, trendy designer?

No, this is Monotype in 1971.

www.flickr.com/photos/stewf...

#Neographik #TypeSpecimen #Fonts #Typography
Monotype Neographik ad, Penrose Annual, Vol. 64, 1971
I’ve always loved Neographik. Just one single style. A bit awkward, but sensible at the same time. Rarely used. The most recent prominent appearance was for the 2007 rebrand of The New Museum.
www.flickr.com
October 31, 2025 at 7:47 AM
typographica.org
Tweeted in 2011. Let's make it true in 2026!
typographica.org Typographica @typographica.org · Mar 8
Two unique buttons in every browser:
1. Read (using user's CSS prefs, a la Readability)
2. Pay (to publisher from user's personal fund)
October 30, 2025 at 10:11 PM