Friends! Colleagues! Typophiles!
Here’s some beautiful lettering by Ukranian type designers Victoria and Vitalina Lopukhina, as spotted in this fantastic Alphabettes post. Look at the extended leg of that K! This proves my theory that typography is more punk than punk rock.
But, this week, a revelation: what if I stop talking about it and just make the damn book?
Here’s the plan. Collect a bunch of short stories from this here newsletter, Adventures in Typography, edit them, cajole them, weld them together into a Kindle book. Afterwards, donate everything to a typographic cause of some kind. It would be a love-letter-ebook to typography and typographers alike.
That sounds neat, right?
In a flurry of excitement on Tuesday it began. I booted up a Word doc, and watched as it slowly took shape:
These big letters you see here would precede the beginning of each chapter and break the pace up but—fear not though—these are just placeholders for now. I’ll replace these once I get sign off from all the type designers that it’s okay to use their work.
I soon realized my grave mistake as I started work on it though because this is no ordinary Kindle book that I can put together in just a few days—this is an honest-to-goodness book. A physical thing with pages and texture and binding. A months-long project that I am drawn to perilously now and one that requires unfamiliar skills. I’d need permission from all the type designers I adore for reference material of course, I’d have to punch up a lot of the writing, and then I’d have to learn about paper stock and printing and other book-making things that I am entirely ignorant of today.
And, dearest, sweetest, most gracious of typophiles, I’d need your help, too.
In a separate Figma doc, I started panic-gathering a bunch of my favorite letters for these chapter headings...
...and mocked up some fake type specimens...
This project is going to maybe be the biggest thing I’ve worked on so far.
Next I’ll need to write the thirteen remaining stories that I need to complete the alphabet from A-Z. Then, I’ll do a bunch of editing and rearranging and writing which takes forever. Then, if I am very lucky and very productive, I am hoping to send off a first draft to one of those book-on-demand services this week. Just like making a website, I need to get an early prototype in my hands to see if this thing makes sense, to test the size and format, to think through other details/problems/opportunities.
Anyway: this is exciting! I am excited.
See you next week,
✌️ Robin