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Apparently pre-orders are what it’s all about when it comes to books, so I’ve entered full-blown ‘pre-order mode’ — even though I feel bad about mentioning it in virtually every sentence I write or speak. As part of doing the pre-order dance, my publisher suggested I make a video for Amazon to live on the book’s product page alongside the other preview images. Please send your sympathies to the long-suffering camera operator (my wife) because it took me about 17 takes to get that damn thing right.

Anyway, as well as the impending pub date for the book itself, I also want to tell you about the Fine Specimens book tour! I’ll be celebrating the publication’s release with five events across the UK and Europe, and I’ll be documenting the whole tour via a dedicated pop-up newsletter. Here are some dates for your diary:

📍 Bristol   🗓️ 10th March   🔎 Bookhaus
📍 Brussels   🗓️ 1st April   🔎 Waterstones
📍 Düsseldorf   🗓️ 27th April   🔎 beyond tellerrand
📍 London   🗓️ 14th May   🔎 TBA
📍 Paris   🗓️ 30th May   🔎 Now26

Will I see you at any of those? Whether you can make it or not, if you fancy galavanting around Europe with me in newsletter form, please consider lending me your email address — and it really is only lend, because the whole database will be deleted after the tour. That’s what pop-up newsletters are all about: being in the moment. When it’s gone, it’s gone! An email marketer’s worst nightmare.

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Before I get on with this issue, a quick and shameless reminder that — as I mentioned last issue — my next book, Fine Specimens, is now available to pre-order from anywhere you choose to buy books! (The absolute best place would be an actual physical bookshop local to you, or bookshop.org.) It won’t be out until March, but if you pre-order it now, that decision will most definitely mature into one that benefits your future self. Promise.

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And for a good month or so prior to that, I’d been debating whether or not to work the Fine Specimens cover reveal into a ‘regular’ issue of the newsletter, or to make it its own thing. As you might’ve guessed from the subject line, I landed on this issue being dedicated entirely to the revealing of the cover artwork and details on how to pre-order the book. (I hope you’ll forgive the indulgence. If you’re not interested in Fine Specimens, please feel free to delete this issue and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks for all the normal stuff.)

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In a recent issue of Flavia Zimbardi’s newsletter, she reflected on the nature of calling a type design complete and says that “you don’t finish a font so much as you decide to stop.” I love that. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that fonts are almost somewhere in between web design in print design: yes, they’re software and theoretically easy to update, but getting users to update font files to new versions can be difficult, and force-updating them via a delivery network of sorts can lead to problems, too, like documents suddenly reflowing without explanation. So, in many ways, the hard stop is preferable: here’s the final version and that’s that.

The reason this has all been on my mind of late is that as of two weeks ago, my next book, Fine Specimens, is officially DONE. It’s been almost done for some time now (as you’ll know from previous issues), but after a final round of tweaks and then a last-minute round of further tweaks — requested by me but handled by the publisher, since by that point the files were quite literally out of my hands — the book is now at the printers. The hard stop has, at last, arrived.

The funny thing about this process is that there’s no grand, conclusive moment. No fireworks. No champagne. That point where the book gets called ‘done’ simply comes down to one email, with one tiny change request and an accompanying screen grab, and then… that’s it. It’s finished.

I’ll be sure to celebrate properly in March when the book’s published, but for now, knowing that it can no longer be changed at all, I’ve effectively been given permission to switch from production mode to marketing mode, and I owe a different department at Quarto an email with a few plans on that front. They’ve given me the green light to do the official cover reveal in the next issue of the newsletter, so watch out for that.

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I’ve got an announcement to make: I’m very proud to be joining the Adobe Fonts team as Senior Staff Designer, and today is my first day as an employee. In fact, today is the first day I’ve been an employee of anywhere in... checks notes... 18.5 years.

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My daughters are seven and ten, and even thought it’s now been a number of years since they’ve been going to school — and therefore having six-week school holidays every summer, while both my wife and I attempt work — there haven’t been quite enough annual cycles in this routine for my brain to rewire itself to sufficiently anticipate the juggling required every summertime. Now, I love the juggle. We’re lucky we get to do the juggle. But to add to this year’s chaos: the final throes of Fine Specimens, my next book.

If you were here for the last issue, you’ll know that squeezing book production work around all the things has been my life recently, and stupidly — oh god, so stupidly — I’ve added to that significantly these last few weeks by addressing a bunch of book-related paperwork that I really should’ve got sorted about eight months ago. Third-party permission forms aren’t particular interesting to write about or read about, so I’ll save you the agony, but what it does mean is that the book is very, very, very nearly done now.

Perhaps ever so slightly more interesting (although not much) is the act of actioning some final typos and small typesetting tweaks that I found while reading through a lo-res printed copy while we were on holiday in Greece a few weeks ago. I’d vowed not to do any work while away — and I did manage to leave my laptop at home (the first time, ever, I think, that I’ve managed to do that) — but it seemed prudent to at least give things a once-over on-paper. And oh my, here’s another lesson I’ve still not yet managed to learn: if you want to find mistakes, print it out. There’s nothing quite like the magical power of analogue media to reveal spelling mistakes, grammatical weirdness, missing styles, unnecessary line breaks, and sentences that — thanks to the omission of one very important word — make absolutely no bloody sense. Seriously, it’s magic.

So was finding an error on pretty much every other page (for context: that means on around 100 pages) a good thing or a bad thing? Ultimately, a good thing — because there’s no way I’d want the book going to print in that state — but urgh, what a slog to get to the finish line. That whole 80/20 rule… I’m not sure it applies to books. With books, it feels like the vast majority of that intense, mission-critical, frenzied work really equates to the last 5% of the process. And, once again, no matter how many times I’ve been through this process, it’s still something I’ve yet to learn. Maybe my next book will successfully handle my brain’s rewiring?

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If there is a word for that, I’d love to know it, because that’s where my head’s been at these last few weeks, folks. Fine Specimens — my coffee table collection of contemporary specimen graphics from today’s top type foundries (that’s not its tagline, but maybe it should be) — is very nearly ready to go to print and, as of last night, I’ve finished addressing the big ol’ mountain of feedback from my publisher, and now just need to go through and do one final check on the graphics.

My original intention was to not talk about Fine Specimens this far ahead of its publication (scheduled for March next year), lest you get sick to death of it, but my head has been so full of this project lately, it’s hard to keep quiet. How are things with you, Elliot? people ask me, and I spin round, foaming at the mouth, eyes wide, sweat pouring, and bark MAKING NEW BOOK!!! at them. At least, that’s what it feels like.

Unlike with Universal Principles of Typography, putting this one together has meant working my day job and then launching into book work on evenings and weekends. And, if you know me, or have seen me talk at a conference, or have read any issue of Lagom that we put out a few years ago, you’ll know that this is not something I ever encourage. This isn’t a healthy work-life balance and, honestly, I can’t wait for the craziness to be over. Maybe it’s an age thing, but my mental capacity for juggling multiple projects is not what it once was.

However! I’m proud of how this project has (nearly) turned out and I’m happy to say that when I asked the publisher if I could share some spreads with you as a little tease, they said yes! So here you go: three almost-final spreads from Fine Specimens to whet your appetite:

If you’re interested in being the first to hear about when Fine Specimens is available to pre-order, well, you’re already in the right place. And if it’s not your cup of tea, don’t worry: I’ll try not to bang on about it in every issue. But I am conscious that I probably didn’t do enough to build up buzz prior to the pub date of UPoT, so this book will get a bit more of a push. So, yes, this is me asking for your forgiveness in advance.

By pure chance, this issue has got lots of free fonts mentioned in it. A healthy exchange for all the shameless book promo, right?

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Anyway, hello! And a very special hello to those of you who signed up after watching me blabber on about typography for 25 minutes (which absolutely flew by) on the second day of Config. I was really happy with how the talk went. The room was packed (I’m told around 3,500 attendees, not including those watching the livestream — yowzers), the vibe from the crowd was fantastic, and it all went off without a hitch. Well, as far as I knew at the time, anyway — when watching back the recording, I realised that almost all of the credits and URLs on my slides didn’t display for some totally unknown reason. The irony of having fonts not render, during a talk that dedicated a fair amount of time to that very subject, has not been lost on me.

Would you like to watch (or rewatch) my talk? Figma were very quick at getting the recordings online. Here’s a photo taken by my old mate Tim van Damme:

As well as the speaking gig itself, I had a great time in SF generally, mainly because I got to see a bunch of old friends, make some new friends, and see some internet-only friends in real life for the very first time. On the night before my presentation, I was treated to a fascinating talk by Stephen Coles at The Letterform Archive (and was honoured to find that my book and copies of 8 Faces magazine are in the archive itself). I even managed to squeeze in a quick lunch with Jessica Hische at her incredible shop / studio in Oakland before getting on the plane home.

Early drafts of this of this newsletter were full of my San Franciscan exploits, but you can always head over to Instagram for that. I bet you’re keen to get on with some typographic goodness, aren’t you?

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With that little apology out of the way, let’s crack on with some typographic goodness. We’ve got new fonts, new books, new events, new articles, and even new news. How about that?

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Where better to start, then, before we get to the fonts, than a few words about the street where I’ve been staying these last couple of days?

I was so happy to find an Airbnb on Bakklandet, because this particular street is very dear to me: when I lived in Trondheim in the summer of 2008, I worked from a café (whose name I’ve forgotten, and which is now a restaurant) on this street every single weekday — and my Airbnb is directly opposite that building.

Back then, it was a time of real change: my then girlfriend (now wife) and I had decided to permanently say goodbye to London — and our jobs, too, which for me meant making the jump to go full-time freelance. While Sam did some travelling around Asia, I headed to Trondheim, where I had some friends, and started life as an independent designer — and this café was effectively my first remote office.

Soundtracked by Neil Young’s Harvest, Bell & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, and The Beatle’s 1 — three albums the café had on repeat, all day, every day — I’ve got very fond memories of my Norwegian summer and first foray into freelance. These were the days before affordable or reliable mobile data, so my online activities were completely restricted to the hours I spent in that café, which resulted in an unintentionally healthy work-life balance. It’s been fun to reminisce.

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Anyway, hello! And happy new year if it’s not already too late to say so. (Yesterday, someone told me it’s only too late to say once you stop regularly writing the old year by accident. I liked that.) I hope you had a good break over the festive period. Did you read any of the previous two emails over a wintery tipple and some Christmas tunes? Please let me know if so. Photo evidence will be very warmly received.

I’m already feeling slightly stressed at not yet having published my annual review of the year over on the blog, so I’m going to keep this issue pretty concise. Please accept this as a short and hopefully sweet blast of inspiration to help fire up those creative cylinders.

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And oh, that reminds me: I’ve discovered a load of old but totally new-to-me Christmas music thanks to a wonderful Spotify playlist by Katie Clapham, who runs one of my favourite newsletters, Receipt from the Bookshop. (I’ve mentioned it before and probably will again.) Anyway, Elvis? Yes, really. I might even be a convert. And oh boy, I had no idea that Bob Dylan had recorded the giddy, Schnitzelbank-inspired, somewhat SpongeBob Squarepants-esque Must Be Santa. You’ll definitely need a drink for that one.

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• 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.

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On Tuesday night, our dear old dog Ozzy — our Prince of Darkness, our Black Labbath — decided it was time to go. It was, in so many ways, the best departure any of us could hope for: naturally, in a favourite spot, surrounded by loving family.

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