Berlin! Who’s in town for @beyondtellerrand.com?

Earlier this week, I sent out the latest issue of my #typography newsletter. This little video scroll-through hopefully gives you a taste, but feel free to head over to elliotjaystocks.com/newsletter/h... to read it in your browser.

I’m so happy to see the new beyondtellerrand.com live! Partly because it’s beautiful, partly because it’s a collab between 3 of my friends (@mikekus.bsky.social, @bastianallgeier.com, @marcthiele.com), but mainly because it now accurately captures the vibe of actually being *at* Marc’s event.

Over the weekend, I finished writing the next issue of my #typography newsletter and I’ll be sending it out tomorrow. If you like hearing about new fonts, new foundries, interviews with designers, and the progress of my type specimen book, lend me your address to get it in your inbox tomorrow!

I’m very happy to announce that today is my first day as Senior Staff Designer on the Adobe Fonts team — and, in fact, the first day I’ve been an employee of *anywhere* in 18.5 years! I wrote a bit about it on the blog:

@ahumanfuture.co @scott.is @bell.bz @strange.website @whitep4nth3r.com @robbowen.digital @lurkmoophy.bsky.social @alexolder.com @loftio.co.uk @bryn.codes @darn.es @oliverlindberg.com @orangetronic.bsky.social Had to run an errand, but see you in the King St Brew House for a quick pint before home!

So lovely of @scott.is to include my book in his talk at @webdevconf.com! Thank you, mate! Oh, if anyone wants to follow Scott’s advice… elliotjaystocks.com/books

En route to @webdevconf.com. Frustratingly, it looks like I’m going to arrive about halfway into @strange.website’s talk. Yep, I’m going to be *that* guy. Looking forward to seeing everyone, though!

Any Dia users out there finding Okta Verify no longer works? It’s crazy that such a tedious, practical, day-to-day issue is what’s forced my hand to switch from Dia as my default browser. Well, that and the lack of sync. And its weird detachment from Arc. So, what‘s everyone using these days?

This is going to be super interesting.

It’s day 1 of #inktober ’25! I wasn’t planning on following the prompts, but when I saw that today’s was ‘moustache’, I couldn’t resist drawing Bill Skarsgård’s moustachioed Nosferatu. (Why *did* they do that? Such a strange decision.)

Next Thursday (9th), I’ll be having an informal and candid chat to Katy Cowan at @creativeboom.com about the power of Grayskull — I mean *side projects*. It’s online and free to attend — just sign up to The Studio (again, for free). community.creativeboom.com/events/ellio...

Very much enjoying Hindsight — an RSS reader for iOS by Scott Robbin. This is exactly the level of simplicity I’m looking for in an RSS reader. (Found via @densediscovery.bsky.social)

Well, guess who just bought himself a ticket for next Friday’s @webdevconf.com? I spoke there many, many moons ago and this year’s event (in particular) looks like a great chance to see a bunch of internet pals in real life, and probably a few web design OGs, too. Who’s going?!?

From the first glimpse of red (top left) to today’s incredible colours (bottom right) — the Virginia Creeper outside my little garden studio really knows how to autumn.

Once again toying with the idea of moving from Spotify to Apple Music. Once again dipping my toe via a 1-month free trial. Once again wondering how the Apple Music macOS app is still so... um... challenging? I know there are some third-party Apple Music clients out there. Any personal recs?

Crikey. Just realised that #inktober2025 is just around the corner. I loved doing it last year and was pleased with myself that I managed to draw most of the days, but good lord, it added the need to find about an extra hour every day, and that was *hard*. Need to find a better process this year.

Sooooo excited to be speaking at The Kernference this Friday! And feeling very honoured to be part of such a stellar lineup. The whole thing’s online and kicks off on Wednesday. So, if you haven’t got your ticket yet...

Just sent out the latest issue of my newsletter, coming to you this time from New York. Lots and lots of type and typography links — including to the Type Design Class courses that close enrolment... today!

The Browser Company of New York is being acquired by Atlassian.

This is old — 14 years old, in fact, which is pretty ancient in web terms — but it’s the first I’d seen of it (via @whitep4nth3r.com’s newsletter) and still holds up nicely: “a tediously accurate map of the solar system” made by @misterjworth.bsky.social. Great for grokking those big ol’ distances.

This video, despite its oversimplified title, offers an excellent and concise summary of everything that’s wrong with algorithm-driven social media right now. (via @fchouquet.bsky.social)

Starting my day with a decaf from Wimp, the coffee company run by my mate Matthew Smith (AKA ‘Whale’ — why isn’t he on Bluesky?). Yes, I’m biased (and yes, I’d buy it just for the branding), but Wimp’s Hachiko beans are honestly better than anything other decaf I’ve ever had. wimpdecaf.com

“I don’t write these posts for VC-funded LLMs to come along and gobble up and produce some shitty facsimile, or summarise what I’m saying with none of the nuance or context on someone else’s website.” Nodding along to this wonderful post by @localghost.dev.

I’ve been playing around with Blip to send / receive files and it’s seriously impressive. (Yet another great link from @densediscovery.bsky.social.)

Just returned from a couple of weeks away in Greece, where I took a lo-res printed proof of my next book, Fine Specimens, in order to hunt down those final final *final* typos. The good news / bad news (I’m not sure which one) is that I found quite a lot, so back to InDesign we go!

So amazing to see @billie-marten.bsky.social play an acoustic set at @roughtraderecords.bsky.social and then get to meet her afterwards! It was our daughters’ first ‘proper’ gig and little Gwen even gave her a portrait she’d drawn this afternoon.

New issue of my #typography newsletter heading to inboxes... now! Lots of good folks doing amazing work in this one (@typetogether.bsky.social, @jamfactory.bsky.social, @pimpmytype.bsky.social), plus the first look inside my next book, Fine Specimens, which will be published by Quarto next March!

It’s that time again: you know, where I post a video scroll-through of my next newsletter draft and ask you to sign up if you haven’t already. This one features (as you can see) the first reveal of spreads from my next book, Fine Specimens! Going out this Thursday. elliotjaystocks.com/newsletter

I’m so honoured to be in the lineup for Good Type’s wonderful online event The Kernference this September, where I’ll be talking about typography in design systems. If you register before midnight tonight you’ll get $100 off the full ticket, a free mockup bundle, and a workshop pass for $70.

So much to love about Wondermake’s website. (via @piccalil.li)

Anyone using @laravel.com Herd in conjunction with @getkirby.com and had issue with the latest version? I’ve updated Herd and now my personal site won’t run its local copy. “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare dump()” Yay, Monday.

In the spirit of neither endorsing nor condoning but *understanding* AI design & dev tools, I’ve been experimenting on a little side project. For the dev side, Claude has made me some decent front-end prototypes, but if I want an actual web app I can put on a server somewhere, what should I try?

Paging all doom metal / stoner rock lovers: AlphaWhores’ “You Can Come Out Now” album is absolute gold. Every single track — including their cover of “Over and Over”. (Linking to their Bandcamp here, but obviously you can find it on all the usual streaming services, too.)

Folks, I’ve had a semi-bonkers idea for a thing, and I’d like to ask for your help! If you live in mainland Europe and you know of an especially nice indie bookshop — one that stocks typography books *and* hosts events — would you mind sending some recommendations my way, please?

This morning, I submitted an almost-final version of my next book, Fine Specimens, ready for my editor to review. Getting this done required a lot of late nights — not something I ever encourage. But I’m proud of what this book will (hopefully) be when it comes out next year and… I’m so relieved.

After a day trying out Dia, my biggest question is around syncing, as that feels crucial to usefulness — and therefore adoption. Obviously Arc Search will eventually be going away, but in lieu of a (presumably incoming) Dia iOS app, I feel like Dia needs to sync with AS to be useful in the interim.

Oh, hello, Dia! Available now to all Arc users. Intrigued. www.diabrowser.com

Thank you for these wonderful slides, @ishadeed.com — they contain so much CSS wisdom. Bookmarking for some near-future updates I plan on making to my personal site.

What’s everyone using these days to track books they’re reading? I’ve used Oku and Literal, both of which are really nicely designed — and neither of which have the book I’m currently reading in their databases. I have zero interest in using Goodreads. Is there anything else?

Sticky revealing footer: modern (ish) CSS makes it easy.

From the company that brought you negatively tracked Helvetica Neue set at 6pt for iOS 7 comes… yet more illegible text for iOS 26! Can’t even blame Jony Ive this time.

no, i don’t want a summary i want to read the words from your bulging frontal lobe you typed carefully with your weary hands i want to know your context, what’s inside of you, illuminated further by your considered choice of adjectives i will never want a summary for you cannot be summarised

Very much enjoying the podcast-athon that @craigmod.com is on at the moment. This one in particular with @richroll.bsky.social (who I’d not heard of until now — sorry!) was wonderful (and nicely shot, FYI, if you prefer podcasts of the ocular variety).

My friend Viktor Baltus has opened enrolment to all 4 of his type design courses (including 2 new ones), but only until this Friday. I have an affiliate link if you choose to sign up, but honestly, as a past student, I’d recommend his classes anyway. type-design-class.teachable.com/a/aff_xh61df...

I’ve got so much respect for @kagi.com and it’s only enhanced by posts like this. I suspect that many Kagi customers feel that their support for the company equates to taking a stand against big tech, but even if you don’t feel inclined to rebel, their service is simply *better* than Google Search.

An in-depth post from @sdw.bsky.social on the history of iOS’ design evolution, concluding with his own ideas of what might come next in the rumoured Apple ecosystem redesign:

Nodding along to this wonderful post by @robbowen.digital. Hard to know what to quote first. Perhaps this: “In the face of this reckless pursuit of hype-over-craft, I can't help but find myself longing to be part of something that makes good on the industry's early promise of responsible change.”

Only just now seeing the news about Arc. That’s a real shame. I liked how they were trying to do something a bit different.