The Weekly Typographic

Kili, Originality, and Calendars 📅 A wild ride this week — from chatting about Clippy-esque rebrands, to conceptual UX and calendars, to the fine line between a font revival and copying someone's work. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Recraft, Grid Levels, and Surveyor 🗺️ This week, in a bit of a rapid-fire episode, Thomas and Micah chat about a handful of cool tools, inspiration, and detailed type design articles that landed on our doorstep this week! Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Abstract, Berlow, and Color 🎨 This week, we dive into some fun articles on ASCII art & fonts, the grandfather of type's (David Berlow) catalog getting acquired by Monotype, and a bunch of fun chat about reto-futuristic design and color. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

StyleDrop, Tank-Man, & The Olympics 🏊🏻 Extremely excited to share this week's podcast episode with you — Micah & summer co-host Thomas Jockin talk about all the cool links we shared this week, plus a little something extra. Tune in! Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Origins, Upgrades, and Gushers 🍬 This week, Micah will be back, joined by our summer guest co-host, Thomas Jockin, to nerd out, talk type, and discuss all the links from this week. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Our favorite free fonts and tools of 2022 🎶It’s the final countdown, do do do doooooo….🎶 For our final newsletter and podcast for the year we’re talking about our favorite free finds of the year, featuring resources, fonts, and tools. We each picked one or two things we liked (or something we wanted an excuse to talk about again) and collected them here for you. There’s democratized design tools, a couple of fun fonts, and a big old list of other resources for you to save. Phew. That’s a wrap for 2022! What a year. A wild one of AI and gloopy fonts. We can’t wait to see what 2023 brings up. We’re taking a break until Feb, so we’ll see you in the new year. We hope you’re taking a break too and enjoying the fun things of winter (in the northern hemisphere) or summer (in the southern hemisphere), and celebrating whatever you celebrate with whoever you most like celebrating with. Most of all, thanks for all of your wonderful support this year. For coming to workshops, sending us links to check out, tagging us in stuff, listening to the podcast, reading the emails, and generally being part of the gang. We appreciate you! Micah, Olivia, and Steph x PS. If you’ve seen something over the break that you want us to see, send it our way. You can find us @theleagueof on instagram and twitter. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Our favorite share-worthy reads of 2022 Friends! We are fast approaching the end of the year, which means we get to start our traditional episodes of sharing some fam favorites from the year. This week we’re sharing some articles that we loved reading, thinking, and talking about this year and have been noodling on ever since we first saw them. We’re revisiting death metal logos (which was one of your fav episodes too), genderless design, the Olympics rebrand, and our friend, OK. Next week it’s all about our favorite fonts and cool tools for the year. So keep your peepers peeled for that one. If you’ve seen something that you think we should talk about, let us know! Hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

2022 Retrospective There’s a bit of a theme to this week’s articles, with a bit of a ‘using type on the web’ flavor to our links and discussions. Which is good because we get to pick Micah’s brain on some of these subtleties and clever tips on using type well in web designs. As we move into the end of the year (how?!) we’re doing a few end-of-year-y conversations. Starting with this one, which is a bit of a retrospective on the 2022 year in design. We’re revisiting the Monotype Type Trends report to see what came true, chatting about what we’ve seen in the world, and what we’ve been surprised about over the last 12 months. Let us know if you’ve seen something different - we’d love to know. If you’ve seen something that you think we should talk about, let us know! Hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Adobe Fonts Deep Dive Hands up if you enjoyed our conversation with DJR last week. It’s proving a popular episode - thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. This week we’ve got some fresh new links to talk about, and a nerd alert that segues from last week’s interview. We’ve got some rather beautiful examples of 3D lettering created by a text to image AI generator, a riff on color fonts, UI chats, and a cool bespoke typeface out of Brazil. Our big nerdy chat this week is all about Adobe Fonts. The good, bad, and ugly of the evolution from Typekit to Adobe Fonts and how some of the mechanics work behind the scenes if you’re a designer putting fonts into the catalogue. As usual, if you’ve seen something that you think we should talk about, let us know! Hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. PS. No podcast next week as we’re taking some time off for the holiday weekend here in the US, but we’ll still drop into your inbox to give you something to read between servings of pie.  Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

An interview with David Jonathan Ross We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again; the conversations we have with people from around the type and design industry make our hearts very happy. And this week is another example of that as we got to talk to the one and only David Jonathan Ross, or DJR. He shares his insights on what’s happening in the type world, how he runs his type design business, and much much more. It’s a fun conversation, we hope you love it too. We’ve also got articles and things for you to read. A hot tip from DJR, a cool piece of type merchandise / marketing, an early 2023 trends list, and some interesting changes to categories at the Type Director Club awards. If you’ve seen something that you think we should talk about, let us know! Hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Emerging Type Tech Tools Over the last couple of months, we’ve come across a few fancy new tools and tech for designers / type designers that have had us talking. So this week, we’ve packaged all of those up in a nice box and presented them to you as an audio (and newslettery) gift. There’s some thoughts on AI+type, a serious upgrade to an existing type-creation tool, new things to make 3D design with, a super cool tool for making handwritten type, and a typeface funded by the future. If you’ve seen another emerging tech tool that you think we should have included, tell us! Hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

So you want to distribute a font? We’ve been talking and thinking a lot lately about the different routes for designers who design type, but aren’t necessarily wanting to be full-time type designers. Do you need to start a foundry? How do you get your type out there? Do you have to distribute via one of the big platforms like Google or Adobe? (Spoiler alert: the answer to all of these questions is no). We’re talking about this more this week in a nerd alert all about novel ways of distributing fonts. There’s also a few articles to enjoy. Two historical institutions had type-heavy rebrands, Libbie Bischoff has a new typeface in progress, and we looked at an article that celebrates our favorite two letters; OK. You know what to do - if you’ve seen something cool on the internets that you think we should be talking about, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Tattoo Lettering We’re back on our regular schedule after last week’s fun detour to collaborate with the Interrobang podcast (if you haven’t listened to that one, it’s a fun one, so make sure you scroll back a week in your podcast player to give it a listen). This week we tried to get into spooky season mode, but the closest we got was tattoos, which took us down a pretty interesting route looking at the skill overlap between tattoo artists, letterers, and type designers and the different challenges when you’re working on a ‘skin canvas’ versus a digital or (non-living) physical canvas. We’re also talking about the role of designers in designing for good when it comes to technology use and mental health, looking at a clever Twitter thread, and enjoying a new custom typeface for Braun. You know what to do - if you’ve seen something cool on the internets that you think we should be talking about, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Weekly Typographic x Interrogang Crossover Do not adjust your sets! We are coming to you this week with a very special (early) episode with our first crossover episode. And we couldn't be happier with this crossover as we're talking to the delightful and equally-as-nerdy-about-typography, Kyle and Josh from the Interrogang Podcast. cue applause We mashed up our respective podcast formats - Kyle and Josh brought two great links about new type releases, and we offered up two articles on how type is being used in the world in two rebrands. We loved the different perspectives and metaphors that Kyle and Josh bring to the conversation. After the links, we dive into a nerd alert talking about the ways that type designers can get their type out there, in particular new ways of producing and marketing type and whether you really have to start a foundry if you’re making type on the regular. We had a blast, we hope you enjoy this conversation too. And if you did, you can let us know! Find us on Twitter or Instagram @theleagueof on both platforms, and catch Kyle and Josh on Twitter @proof_and_co. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Packaging Design Storytime: From Dieline to Production Line Settle down children, and pull up a comfy seat - it’s story time. Join Olivia and Micah in the reading corner for this week’s nerd alert where Olivia is talking all about the world of packaging design. She shares her early experience of doing bespoke event packaging, and then moving into more commercial packaging where she learnt all of the intricacies, politics, and legalities of big-brand packaging design. As usual, there’s also practical tips if you are doing packaging design, or would like to add it to your design repertoire. As usual, we also chat about some other links and fun things. Monotype have gobbled up another collection of typefaces, our friend Elliot Jay Stocks has shared his experience of moving his website to use variable fonts, there’s some chatter about blocking web fonts for privacy reasons, and the London Fire Brigade have a charming new custom typeface. You know the drill - 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 can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Startup Design Trends We’re back to regular scheduling this week with Micah and Olivia chatting about all things type and design. And we're gonna be honest, this week’s links are a somewhat ragtag mix of design and type talking points. We chat about a recent Dinamo newsletter where they interviewed a Font Licensing Specialist, look at some handy insights on using typography in infographics, check out the baller move from Canva in releasing eleventybillion new products in one go, and enjoy the quirk-fest of an identity for this year’s Brand New Conference. We also have a nerd alert this week, all about start up design trends. Is it still a sea of blue logos and lower case, sans serif word-marks, or has the world changed? (Spoiler alert… not really, but it’s a bit more purple than blue). But you’ll have to listen to this week’s episode to find out the full verdict. 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 can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

An Interview with Beatriz Lozano We’re having a chat with another designer this week, and we’re super excited that that designer is the wonderful Beatriz Lozano [insert cheers and whooping here]. We’ve been such fans of Beatriz’s work and approach for a long time, so we loved picking her brain on all things tech, design, education, plus a peek into the future 👀🔮. Of course, we’ve also got some cool links for you to check out over your Friday morning coffee. There’s the weird and wonderful world of the Pangram Pangram Lab, a handy UX article about the infamous infinite scroll, a cool project cataloguing Chinese type, and an interview with a type designer about the role of typography in the design process. 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 can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

3D Type Showcase: A Brave Neue World Every so often we like to take a longer look at a certain type/design style or part of the industry. We’ve been seeing a lot of interesting 3D design pop up recently, both in the real world and in the overlayed world of AR so we wanted to get a little bit deeper to take a peek at different applications of this field. There’s some amazing artists doing such creative work, we’ve picked five to have a look at and a chat about this week; Alex Valentina, Rajshree Saraf, Vincent Wagner, Mora Vieytes, and Noah Camp. So grab a coffee, sit back and enjoy the eye candy and brain explosions… If you’ve seen something cool on the internets (whether in 3D or any other dimensions!) that you think we should know about, you can let us know on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

Trial Fonts and Tribulations This week Olivia is joined by Steph and they are having a big old chat about trial fonts; what we like about them, what annoys us about them, their possibilities, and some of the creative ways foundries are using them / thinking about them as part of their marketing plan. (If you’ve got strong thoughts on trial fonts - we’d love to hear them, hit reply and let us know!). As usual, we’re also talking about some type and design news. We chat about Katy Cadwell’s new NDA Podcast, and her recent episode about the highs and lows of comments on design websites and some fascinating behind the scenes insights from designers and platform owners. We pop in on our friends at I Love Typography to look at their recent article on fonts for books (which has lots of foundries and designers we weren’t familiar with), hop over to Chile to read about the Chilean typography scene guided by Franco Jonas, and then admire a rather nice piece of brand design on what is a rather serious financial service; life insurance. 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 on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links

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 that you think we should know about, you can let us know on Twitter or Instagram. You can find us @theleagueof on both platforms. Weekly Typographic Newsletter Links