Background Layer #7
Kicking off 2025, we’re planning in Mexico City while tackling code, type releases, and Instagram dilemmas.
Welp, 2025 is off to a “start.” We hope you are safe (all our love to LA) and doing your best to stay true to your values and stay as sane as possible.
This is Background Layer #7 and Ben is back in the writing seat for it.
In progress
Planning
Right now, I’m sitting on a plane to Mexico City, where we are having our annual planning retreat. Usually, this looks like Ben or Jesse showing up in each other’s city and sitting at our kitchen tables for a couple of days, but this year is different. With Zrinka on the team, we have changed it up and are looking forward to a week of dreaming/planning/good food/warm weather (Ben & Jesse).
We find this yearly check-in and planning session critical to finding our footing; when we didn’t do it for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were pretty rudderless, to be honest.
One of the most valuable things we do is to fill out a chart of different areas of the business: where we are, where we want to be in the new year, and where we want to be in the next year. This really helps to filter the decisions we make during the year.
If you are in Mexico City, join us and Letrastica CDMX on the 29th for an evening of type talk (details here).
Code
I’ve also been in the throes of writing a bunch of code and automation—some for mastering, some for tool building, and some working on fontParts. Writing code is something I’ve always done, and while I don’t think I am exceptional at it, building and tinkering gives me great joy (getting a bunch of Zapier scripts to automate data tedium has become a special delight).
I’ve been diving into more of fontbakery to help with QA automation. It can be an overly fussy tool, but it is handy for catching many easily forgotten things.
The other thing high on my list is my long-standing issue with fontmake. We have a bunch of complicated variable fonts in the pipeline, and solving this will save a bunch of complexity and time, so it is on the list to try and solve, as it seems no one is picking this one up.
Recommendations
Ilya and crew at Type Today have been turning out a great series of interviews lately, and the one that just came out with Erik van Blokland is especially great. Erik drops all kinds of gems, and it’s well worth your time.
I think generative AI is an attack on the liberal arts. It claims possession of work that has been done, and it tells people that whatever they do is going to be insignificant in the light of the thing that a computer can do in a couple of clicks. AI tries to take away the possibility to make something new or to be curious or to even have the godforsaken notion that maybe you want to have your own idea.
—Erik van Blokland
This weekend, the World Cup Cyclocross season ended with a race Saturday at Maasmechelen and one today at Hoogerheide. Saturday’s Women’s Elite race was a banger. If you like watching racing, these 48 minutes are worth your time. No spoilers.
Type releases
Two things caught my eye over at Future Fonts:
Inga Plonnings’s Ringi plays really well with a variable concept I’ve tinkered with, so I know how difficult it is. I can see this popping up in poster and motion work all this year.
James Hultquist-Todd has been making really high-quality work for a long time, and his Enfilade is no exception. The latest release has the family very close to completion, so if you are looking for a typeface family that is an editorial/poster weapon, now is the time to get on board!
Existential pondering
One sizeable open question this week is what we will do about our use of Instagram. Right now, I am feeling pretty caught between leaving to give no attention/oxygen to Meta (the reasons are endless at this point) and the FOMO of “But will people know we exist without IG?”. Sales don’t come from Instagram, but awareness that we exist does. We just have to find more ways for people to know we are here other than IG1 (of which this email list is one — please share it!)
On repeat
It’s been a quiet month of music, but when in a lull, I go for the playlists by YES PLZ coffee. I have downloaded the 173 Ghostly playlist for when I need to get work done offline.
That’s it for this one. I hope you are well and stay well until another one of these hits your inbox.
—Ben
Yes the irony of complaining about IG but linking to an event notice above on IG is not lost on me. ↩