Hello from now-cold-again-after-being-almost-80°-two-days-ago Saint Louis, clearly now through our second false Spring. As usual, this is Ben writing to you about what XYZ Type has been up to, which, for this go-around, is mostly about marketing because describing our process for arriving at a new standard character set was too much for tonight!

Conference & event season

Sometimes you have to get out and meet folks and shake hands, and the next couple of months are going to be a bit packed with that. (tl;dr: Type Drive Culture, In-House/In-Focus, LetterWest, AIGA NY, LA Art Book Fair)

Jesse has taken the train down to NYC for tomorrow’s (March 13th) Type Drives Culture one-day conference put on by the Type Directors Club. We’re sponsoring it, but more importantly, Jesse would love to meet you if you are there. Say hi!

Then next week in Chicago is the In-House In-Focus In-Person put on by Armin and Bryony from the Underconsideration empire. I’m going to this one, so if you’re going and want to do lunch, reply to this email and let me know!

Early April brings the LetterWest conference. Too much travel means we won’t be there, but we are sponsoring it (remember XYZTYPE on checkout gets you 10% off), as it is an audience and community that we love. We hope that our sponsorship of Jessica Hische’s keynote reminds Aaron Draplin of his long-running ‘beef’ with me (ask Aaron).

The end of April (the 23rd) sees Jesse on a train back down to NYC for the East Coast launch of Identity Is Variable. This is going to a yet unnanounced panel with AIGA New York, moderated by Brian Johnson from Polymode and Jesse. Books will be on hand, and more info will be coming soon (David Jon Walker is one of the panelists).

Two weeks later is the West Coast launch of the book at the Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair. Look for the Polymode table; we’ll be there, and we’re lining up some public talks as well as interested agencies that would like us to talk to their teams (Is this you? Hit reply and let us know!).

Why would we do this to ourselves? To be honest, this is a way of meeting people who might be interested in what we do. The best marketing is a nice conversation where someone feels a kinship that they remember. My uncle called this ‘planting seeds’, so we’re doing our best to plant a bunch this year. We haven’t had a ton of inbound inquiries for work this year, so it’s time to hit the pavement. It’s a scary time for any small business, and we are not immune to it. Which is all to say, if you’ve been entertaining a typographic project, drop us a line; we’d love to chat.

We also wanted to give the Identity Is Variable book its due. That got uploaded to the printer’s InSite today, so hopefully in two weeks I’ll be in Jefferson City, Missouri, on press. The trick with projects that take a lot of time and effort is that when they are done, you have to take a breath, then promote the heck out of them. It feels like running a second marathon after finishing the first, which is tough. We certainly aren’t always the best at this, so we are making a mindful push on this one.

Print nerdery

Zrinka and I spent some time today working through what will be the next printed specimen (coming out at Typographics). We have a couple of different possible directions, but they depend on what various print options will cost, so I got to send this today:

Book

• Ideally bound Square Spine Saddle Stitch Binding, or failing that, staple bound

• Trim size: 5 3/4 x 8 1/2

• Bleed all sides

Quoting 32 and 40 pages + cover for the following options:

Option 1: Digital

• Printing on French Paper Razzle Berry (Pop-Tone) 70# text and 100# cover for the cover

• Will want to print White — also would like a sample to see how opaque this is on color paper

Option 2: Offset

• Printing on house uncoated text sheet and house uncoated cover stock

• 2 PMS colors

Option 3: Offset + Digital

• 28 pages printed on the house uncoated text sheet in 2 PMS colors

• 4 or 12 pages printed digital, including digital white, on French Paper Razzle Berry (Pop-Tone) 70# Text

• Cover printed 2 PMS on 100# Cover French Paper Razzle Berry (Pop-tone)

We’ll see what comes in cheapest. My guess is the offset, just due to paper cost. Let me know what you think.

New year goals

We posted some New Year’s plans on our Instagram to start the year.

I am currently failing a bit on my new year’s goals: my studio is partially picked up, but not where I want it to be.

Jesse has had better success with the result of his pottery class.

Tyler has had the most success, getting her and her mom to Zion National Park!

With that, I’ll leave you with two recommendations: Angine de Poitrine (don’t skip the comments) and What’s My JND?

Until next time—we hope to see you out in the world!

—Ben