Ever wondered why “was”, “am”, and “be” are such different words, despite expressing different tenses of the same verb, “to be”? @colingorrie.bsky.social goes deep in the latest issue of his linguistics newsletter (which is fast becoming one of my favourite weekly reads):

En route to Belgium! 🇧🇪 Tonight, I’ll be in conversation with my good mate, the author-illustrator Paddy Donnelly, at Waterstones in Brussels. We’ll be celebrating the launch of Fine Specimens and chatting about good ol’ books. Come along — it kicks off at 19:30, it’s free, and there’ll be beer!

Here’s a selection of pages from Fine Specimens. You can buy it from anywhere that sells books. Here are some shops (although the best one is your local bookseller): geni.us/FineSpecimens (Also, a reminder that the next leg of the UK / EU book tour is tomorrow night at Waterstones in Brussels!)

Next Wednesday, 1st April (not an April Fools!) I’m having a launch party for Fine Specimens at @waterstones.bsky.social in beautiful Brussels, in conversation with my good friend Paddy Donnelly. The event kicks off at 19:30 and is free, but please RSVP by emailing [email protected]

Apologies for the vertical format — I made this video to please the Instagram algorithm — but it took too bloody long to edit to *not* post it here, too. If you’ve been curious to know which type foundries have their work in Fine Specimens, here’s me reading them all out, with their logos overlaid.

For folks looking to get (back) into blogging, or get a super-simple personal site up and running, @pagecord.com (created by @olly.world, one of the founders of @freeagentapp.bsky.social) looks interesting. It’s giving me early 2010-ish vibes and I mean that entirely as a compliment.

It’s now been one whole week since the release of Fine Specimens and I’ve been so humbled by all the support. And last Tuesday’s launch party at @bookhaus.bsky.social with @jamieclarketype.bsky.social and the Letter Luvvers crew was amazing! Huge thanks to everyone who’s been supportive of the book.

The first issue of the book tour pop-up newsletter is going out tomorrow! It covers Tuesday’s launch event in Bristol and some motivations behind the tour in general. Sign up here if you fancy following along:

Huge thanks to @printmag.bsky.social for the big ol’ “Type Tuesday” feature on Fine Specimens! Deb asked some really great questions and I had a great time answering them. www.printmag.com/type-tuesday...

Last night’s launch event at @bookhaus.bsky.social was so much fun! Thanks so much to the shop for having us, @jamieclarketype.bsky.social for running the chat, and everyone who came out. Still sourcing some photos, but @cityeditionstudio.co.uk’s was the first one on Bluesky!

I can hardly believe the day has come, but I’m beyond thrilled to say that my new book is out! In theory, if you walk into a bookstore today, you should be able to buy or a least order Fine Specimens. Just published a post on the blog about the book, the book tour, and the book tour newsletter:

It’s book pub week! Tomorrow is the first date on the Fine Specimens UK / EU book tour, and that means it’s also the start of the pop-up newsletter I’m writing for the tour’s duration. Care to lend me your email address and join me on this trip? (Also, who’s coming to the Bristol event tomorrow?)

Glaze — a new app-making app from the @raycast.com team. Intrigued!

Have I got any friends here who are experts in OG images? Mine work everywhere, but never show up properly on LinkedIn (e.g. www.linkedin.com/posts/elliot...). It always falls back to the main one for the site rather than the OG image for the page or post. Any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

The new newsletter is heading to inboxes right now! In this issue: — news about my books — new font releases — new-to-me foundry discoveries — type designer interviews — typographically inspiring websites, tools, and streams — a discount code for @typeparis.com Now26. You can read it online, too:

I’ve got a new issue of my #typography newsletter going out tomorrow morning! New fonts, type-related events, book news, new foundry finds. It’s a big one. Here’s a sneak peek. To get it straight to your inbox, please consider lending me your email address over on elliotjaystocks.com/newsletter

I’ve really loved reading the weekly ‘Tiny Talk’ interviews that my good mate @tyfromtheinternet.com has been posting, so was thrilled when he asked me to join the lineup. Mine’s live here:

Bristol friends! Come and celebrate the release of Fine Specimens with me! On Tuesday 10th March, @bookhaus.bsky.social are very kindly hosting the launch event in collaboration with Letter Luvvers. This is also stop #1 on the Fine Specimens *book tour*! www.bookhausbristol.com/events/#e149...

One episode into Hannah Fry’s new series on AI. Recommended!

The @beyondtellerrand.com podcast is live! It was so nice to chat with my very dear friend @marcthiele.com about my new book, Fine Specimens, and the motivation behind it. The episode is available anywhere you get your podcasts!

The always generous @hoosiertypeco.bsky.social wrote some very kind words about Fine Specimens in his newsletter — and took some lovely photos, too. (Thank you, Daniel!) hoosiertypeco.substack.com/p/book-revie...

Had a lovely chat with @marcthiele.com (one of my oldest and dearest web friends) this morning for the @beyondtellerrand.com podcast. Talked lots about the motivation behind Fine Specimens. The episode will be out very soon, apparently (and the book in just over two weeks)!

I did a quick flick-through of Fine Specimens, which comes out very soon: 10th March in the US and 12th March everywhere else. You can pre-order yours now from anywhere that sells books. geni.us/FineSpecimens

The news is out! @beyondtellerrand.com Düsseldorf in April — a conference I love and am very excited to be attending — is also an official stop on the Fine Specimens book tour! Come and say hi if you’re at the event (or nearby)! (Thanks for making this happen, @marcthiele.com!)

I don’t want to jinx it before I’ve fully migrated, but so far I’m loving Jottacloud. The biggest hurdle in migrating from Dropbox has been having to download “Selective Sync” Dropbox folders before re-uploading them. Selective Sync is something your future self will *not* thank your past self for.

I’m a huge fan of the pop-up newsletter format popularised by @craigmod.com and I loved running my previous pop-ups. Now I’m going to be doing it again, this time with a dedicated pop-up for the Fine Specimens book tour, commencing next month. The signup form’s active if you want to get in early:

Very excited to announce that I’ll be a) speaking on a panel about publishing at this year’s @typeparis.com Now26 conference, and b) selling copies of Fine Specimens from the bookshop in the breaks! See you in Paris on 30th May? (Photo by Norman Posselt)

🇧🇪 Type friends in (or near) Brussels, please put Wednesday 1st April (not a joke) in your diaries — we have our first venue confirmed for the Fine Specimens book tour!!! More details to follow, but for now, please shout if you’re interested in coming.

This is a fascinating (and terrifying) read by @matthiasott.com, who identifies the sheer scale of LLM scraper bots hitting personal sites — to the point where web hosts are having to limit traffic, preventing actual humans from accessing them.

EU friends! I’m trying (with varying degrees of success) to plan some small European launch events for the release of Fine Specimens in late March / early April. If you know a bookshop owner (actually know them, not just know *of* them) in a major EU city, I’m gratefully accepting recommendations.

Is anyone here a happy Jottacloud customer and could recommend the service? More specifically, has anyone here migrated to Jottacloud from Dropbox? Anything you’d wish you’d known before starting the process?

Over breakfast this morning, I was telling my kids how, when we were kids, you used to get literal toys stuffed inside cereal packets, or collectible holographic cards built into the box, or at the very least some tokens (“post us 5 tokens and we’ll post you a toy” etc.). Totally blew their minds.

My new book, Fine Specimens, comes out next month! My publisher said I should make a video for the book’s Amazon page, so I figured I might as well post it here, too, esp. as it took about 17 takes. Please feel free to pre-order it from wherever you buy books! Some links: geni.us/FineSpecimens

I love this thoughtful and beautifully presented piece by @terry.social.godier.me.ap.brid.gy (found via @tyfromtheinternet.com’s newsletter), on the anxiety of unread counts and the questionable evolution of app design. “Phantom obligation — the guilt you feel for something no one asked you to do.”

This morning, I gave a talk at my daughters’ primary school assembly (ages 4–11) about being a designer (for their ‘careers week’) and, oh boy, I was *not* ready for that level of audience participation. Possibly the most fun and chaotic 10 minutes of my speaking career to-date.

Delphi Tools by @delphi.rmv.fyi — resizers, converters, references, etc. “A collection of small, low stakes and low effort tools. No logins, no registration, no data collection. [...] Long live the handmade web.” Wow, what a treasure trove! Thank you for making these, Ruby.

Interesting to see that Pencil is now live. I’ve been very curious about this one. Sort of a Cursor-but-for-design.

For the first time ever, I’ve published my “2025 in review” blog post just three weeks into the new year. I fretted a lot about this one. These posts feel so self-indulgent when the world is on fire. But I’m also using it as a chance to express gratitude for everything. Thanks for reading!

Continuing some planning for a potentially semi-bonkers near-future idea, so: Folks in (or near) London, Paris, Berlin, and The Hague, do you know of any nice indie bookshops — ones that stock design books *and* host events — and would you mind sending those recommendations my way, please?

I’ve been using the free trial of GitHub Copilot Pro in VSCode for helping me code personal projects and now it’s time to pay. I was considering that vs. Cursor (which we use at work), but Cursor is 2× the price GHCP — and it still has usage limits (which GHCP does not). Am I missing something?

Finally managed to watch ‘Tripping with Nils Frahm’. What a treat!

If you’re polite to your AI agent...

Can I take a day off to read all of the email newsletters I’ve got saved in my inbox, please? Got some great ones waiting from: @documental.ly @densediscovery.bsky.social @craigmod.com @luismendo.com @fchouquet.bsky.social Kirsty McLachlan Matthew Smith Lizzy Stewart Receipt from the Bookshop

“Nobody should have a billion dollars,” writes @tomwhyman.bsky.social. “People don't have a strong intuitive sense of how much bigger 1 billion is than 1 million. 1 million seconds is about 11 days. 1 billion seconds is about 31.5 years.” (Found via this week’s @densediscovery.bsky.social)

Every single brand on earth doing a “wrapped” at the end of the year is getting a bit tiring... but some folks actually do it right. @raycast.com’s is *excellent*. I love that you can export some of the screens as images, too.

I’ve reached the “argh, all I want to do is redesign the whole thing” stage of my relationship with my personal site. However, knowing that a full redesign will take a while, I’ve been using the Christmas holidays to make a few small tweaks — like finally getting Fine Specimens on my “books” page!

Very cool foundry site for Amateur Type. I love those on-hover video specimens.

Yesterday I published my last newsletter of 2025, feat. @hoodzpahdesign.bsky.social @typeparis.com @ilovetypography.bsky.social @onpaperwings.bsky.social @frerejones.bsky.social @ghostlyint.bsky.social @jakegiltsoff.bsky.social and fonts, books, events, and more you might enjoy if you love type.

Final issue of the year going out very shortly! Here’s a little preview of what’s in this one. elliotjaystocks.com/newsletter

Lovers of type and typography! It’s the last ‘proper’ work week, which means it’s nearly time for me to send my final newsletter of the year. Fancy lending me your email as an early Christmas present? I don’t look at unsubscribe data, so it’s fine if “the very next day, you [take] it away.”