Mike Parker 1929–2014
It’s hard to remember when I first met Mike Parker. I’m sure I had seen him and heard him at ATypI and other conferences before I ever got to know him; his tall, erect posture and booming voice were...
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Type to be read
While I was relaxing in one of the comfy chairs in Typekit’s temporary Pop-Up Library, at TYPO SF in San Francisco last spring, I spotted a small booklet that I had never seen, displayed on the shelf....
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TypeCon2014 | Washington DC
This year’s TypeCon, which went by the name “Capitolized” but really seemed to revel in being “Redacted,” was very enjoyable. It was a great reunion of colleagues and old friends, and a fine way to...
View ArticleSprinting into the future
My e-book essay “What is needed” has just been republished on the website of “Sprint Beyond the Book,” a project of Arizona State University’s remarkable Center for Science and the Imagination. In May,...
View ArticleTraveling & talking & listening: QVED
At the end of February, I was in Munich for QVED, an annual conference about the design of magazines, which was held as part of Munich Creative Business Week. (The odd acronym “QVED” stands for “quo...
View ArticleTraveling & listening & talking: Typo Day
“I can’t believe this is your first time,” said the young Indian woman with whom I was sharing the auto-rickshaw. “It is, though,” I replied, calmly clutching a handhold as the three-wheeled vehicle...
View ArticleEyemag
I just got the latest issue of Dennis Letbetter’s Eyemag, his more or less quarterly series of magazine-size books that showcase different aspects of his long and notable career as a photographer. (I’m...
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Return to Martha’s Vineyard
In May, I had a chance to revisit my childhood home – on a business trip. Although I was born and raised in Bronxville, New York, a close-in suburb of New York City, my family spent all of our summers...
View ArticleA tale of two cons
I just got back from almost a week in Montréal, where I was attending this year’s ATypI conference; just a couple of weeks before that, I had been in Boston at TypeCon. There was, as you might expect,...
View ArticleFarewell to Jack the printer
“The splendid dawns — how many more of them will the gods toss into your basket of days?” – Horace, Carminum Liber IV, trans. Michael Taylor Jack Stauffacher died on Nov. 16, a month shy of his 97th...
View ArticleFacing the world, typographically
On Dec. 1 & 2, Stanford University hosted “Face/Interface,” a small conference on “Type Design and Human-Computer Interaction Beyond the Western World.” The conference was held in conjunction with...
View ArticleSam Hamill
Sam Hamill would have turned 75 on May 9. He had planned to celebrate his birthday with a publication party for his final book, After Morning Rain, on May 15, but in the end he realized that his health...
View ArticleReading Le Guin
A few months back, I got the second two-volume set of Ursula K. Le Guin’s work in the Library of America, “The Hainish Novels and Stories.” (She is one of the very few writers to have their work...
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TypeCon 2018 Portland
At the beginning of August, I was in Portland, Oregon, for the 20th anniversary of TypeCon (which was also TypeCon XX, thanks to their having skipped 1999, the second year). As one of the few who...
View ArticleGerard Unger, Theory of Type Design
I recently finished reading Gerard Unger’s final book, Theory of Type Design, which I bought at the ATypI conference in Antwerp last September and which Gerard signed at the book-launch event there. It...
View ArticleAdieu, W.S. Merwin
The wonderful poet W.S. Merwin died two weeks ago. I had the pleasure of meeting him once and being in his presence twice, and I had the honor of designing one of his books (Flower & Hand: poems...
View ArticleIn search of ATypI
This is the text of the talk I gave yesterday at ATypI 2019 in Tokyo, about the project I’ve been working on for the past year: a history of ATypI. A draft of the first part of the history is now...
View ArticleGerard Unger, Theory of Type Design
I recently finished reading Gerard Unger’s final book, Theory of Type Design, which I bought at the ATypI conference in Antwerp last September and which Gerard signed at the book-launch event there. It...
View ArticleAdieu, W.S. Merwin
The wonderful poet W.S. Merwin died two weeks ago. I had the pleasure of meeting him once and being in his presence twice, and I had the honor of designing one of his books (Flower & Hand: poems...
View ArticleIn search of ATypI
This is the text of the talk I gave yesterday at ATypI 2019 in Tokyo, about the project I’ve been working on for the past year: a history of ATypI. A draft of the first part of the history is now...
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