Hey Type Tuesday fam. This message arrives in your inbox during a difficult moment for Minnesota as ICE activity continues to impact families and neighborhoods in the Twin Cities and throughout our state. I’m appreciative of the opportunity to gather around type for grounding, in solidarity, and as a reminder of community — and grateful for the care we show by staying connected in these times.

I’m writing this from my home/studio in downtown Minneapolis. I feel a bit apologetic for sending out something as seemingly vapid as tentative meeting dates. However, I welcomed the distraction of writing a note for you, and a making pretty header image, and maybe, reading this, you feel the same.

Tentative Meeting Dates

Three tentative in-person meeting dates (listed below) are on the roster for Type Tuesday’s 2026 calendar. These are intended to be in-person at the Minneapolis Central Library, but obviously, we will play it by ear.

Tentative Meeting Dates: Topics & Location TBD

Tuesday March 31, 2026 — 6:00 p.m.

Tuesday June 30, 2026 — 6:00 p.m.

Tuesday October 27, 2026 — 6:00 p.m.

Additionally, I am trying to gauge interest for a late February Virtual Work Session — a type feedback session hosted on Zoom or Meet. If this sounds like a good idea for you, please vote on the most convenient date below. Note: dates are now correct in the poll.

2026 Meeting Presentations:

If you have a type-related topic, research, or project you would like to present to Type Tuesday, please send an email to Michelle Webster via the button below!

In closing, sending every good thought your way. Stay Safe! F*ck Ice.

At our 10/28 meeting, everyone was left wanting more embroidered samplers and graffiti — Craig Eliason has kindly shared helpful online resources on both below. After the presentation and Q&A, discussion turned to new type book releases, and old type industry newspapers. If you have resources to add on any of the meeting or discussion topics, please feel free to add them in the comments!

Resources: Embroidered Samplers & Graffiti

Samplers:
- Sampler Archive - https://samplerarchive.xyz/sapbeta_prod/index.php
- Dr. Lynne Anderson on the Vermont Sampler Initiative -

Graffiti:
- François Chastanet on Philadelphia handstyles - https://francoischastanet.com/philadelphia-handstyles/
- Style Wars, seminal documentary -

- Urban Art Mapping project, from colleagues at St. Thomas -

https://www.urbanartmapping.org/

Books: Type Design Releases

After we all admired James Edmondson’s gorgeous “The OHno Book”, I made a shameless plug for a new addition to my hoarding situation type book reference library, “Specimen No. 0” by Fernando Mello, which chronicles his 22 years in the industry. It is gorgeous, charming, and has little backstories on all the fonts Fernando made from 2001 — 2023. Perhaps adding to its allure, the red-black-and-white-all-over volume may only be purchased by DM-ing Fernando on Instagram (@fermello78), and then naturally one waits anxiously by the mailbox for it to arrive from Brazil (spoiler: worth it!).

History Things: Type Industry Publications, circa 1990 or thereabouts

Mark Simonson brought two very cool type industry news publications for review, TypeWorld and The Typographer to the meeting (terrible photos, there is no good lighting angle in that room). So fun seeing that release of Adobe Type Manager headline. And the TypeWorld masthead = A+. Question, is there a definitive type industry news source currently, or is anything worth knowing just shared and discussed on TypeDrawers?

As always, if you have resources to share, please do so in the comments!

Meeting Details

Tuesday, October 28 2025

6:00 PM: Arrival and Mingle

6:30 PM – 8:00 PM: Presentation

Mpls Central Library - RKMC Room (Second Floor) 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

This event is free, and open to anyone who loves type.

About Craig’s presentation:

Typeset texts and the manuscripts they emulated have largely shaped our sense of what letters should look like. But some texts are neither typeset nor written. This talk investigates two such lettering practices: nineteenth-century embroidered samplers and contemporary graffiti writing. It will show how differing purposes and mediums shaped letters in these traditions, and will uncover how emergent letterform norms were instituted.

By the nineteenth century, a predominant form of embroidery was the “sampler,” which recorded the stitches learned by the embroiderer, typically a young girl. Most of these included alphabets, verse, and/or testimonies of faith, in letters cross-stitched on the grid formed by the fabric’s weave, demonstrating the talents, literacy, and piety of their makers. Among them we find consistent lettering styles, striking precursors of today’s pixel fonts. Norms for these letters were reinforced by teachers and by earlier samplers themselves.

In the world of contemporary street art, graffiti writers run letters of a moniker together in “tags,” sometimes done as “one-liners” with uninterrupted flow from the spray can, or more elaborate “throwups”or “throwies.” Here letterforms are not only influenced by the aerosol tools; they must also be both personal and quick. Norms are again learned from existing examples and more experienced creators. Artists will keep sketches of throwups they plan, complete, or admire in “black books.” These sketchbooks, visual records of their personal engagements with lettering craft, are a fascinating analog to the samplers of centuries before.

Nineteenth-century embroidered pieces served as a record of obedience and conformity to expected gender roles; present-day illicit throwies are on the contrary gestures of defiance and self-expression. But both are useful case studies for how letterform norms adjust to circumstances, mediums, and means of reinforcement.

For more about Craig’s work, check out his foundry website, Teeline Fonts.

Super excited for this presentation — hope to see you there!

Mark Simonson kindly recorded his September 2025 Type Tuesday presentation on the revival of that 70’s beauty, Skin & Bones — adding additional content to address the lively Q&A session following the talk. Skin & Bones a great story of synchronicity and connection, and you’ll love the type industry info and technical context woven throughout. A must see if you missed it — or, like me, just can’t get enough of good things and amazing type.

Thanks, Mark, for making this available to Type Tuesday!

Video: Type@Cooper: A beautiful dark heritage: a historical overview of blackletter in Mexican letterform culture with Jesús Barrientos Mora

Date: July 31, 2023 as part of the Type@Cooper Lubalin Lecture series.

Video description from the T@C website:

There is a constant presence of blackletter in the Mexican landscape that can be spotted everywhere from Tijuana down to Cozumel. In the shape of cholo graffiti, sign painting for birria taco spots, tequila ice cream, tattoo parlours, gravestone carving and a myriad of unapologetic cross-breed lettering displaying creative new styles of blackletter, becoming an essential part of México’s letterform culture.

This presentation will explore the (most probable) reasons behind how and why a mediaeval calligraphy style became so deep-rooted in México as a legacy spreading over 500 years.

Jesús Barrientos Mora is Associate Professor at Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Recipient of the Scaliger Fellowship (2014), author of the book Legado de los Elzevir (2017) and certified in Typeface Design (University of Reading, 2018), he has lectured in institutions like the Dublin Institute of Technology (2015), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (2017) and the Sheffield Hallam University (2019). His typefaces are currently distributed through the Monotype channels and have been awarded by the Bienal Tipos Latinos, Bienal Iberoamericana de Diseño, and Premios Clap, participating in many exhibitions across the Americas and Europe.

Book: Mexican Blackletter, by Christina Paoli

This lovely and interesting book is chock full of thoughtful details like alphabet comparisons and overlay — not just pretty pictures but lots of type geekery. The book has full spreads of the alphabets shown on the cover, in several formats. Definitely a favorite. I find some new tidbit every time I pick it up.

Do you have a favorite blackletter resource? Add it in the comments!

Typeset texts and the manuscripts they emulated have largely shaped our sense of what letters should look like. But some texts are neither typeset nor written. This talk investigates two such lettering practices: nineteenth-century embroidered samplers and contemporary graffiti writing. It will show how differing purposes and mediums shaped letters in these traditions, and will uncover how emergent letterform norms were instituted.

Meeting Details

Tuesday, October 28 2025

6:00 PM: Arrival and Mingle

6:30 PM – 8:00 PM: Presentation

Mpls Central Library - RKMC Room (Second Floor) 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

This event is free, and open to anyone who loves type.

By the nineteenth century, a predominant form of embroidery was the “sampler,” which recorded the stitches learned by the embroiderer, typically a young girl. Most of these included alphabets, verse, and/or testimonies of faith, in letters cross-stitched on the grid formed by the fabric’s weave, demonstrating the talents, literacy, and piety of their makers. Among them we find consistent lettering styles, striking precursors of today’s pixel fonts. Norms for these letters were reinforced by teachers and by earlier samplers themselves.

In the world of contemporary street art, graffiti writers run letters of a moniker together in “tags,” sometimes done as “one-liners” with uninterrupted flow from the spray can, or more elaborate “throwups”or “throwies.” Here letterforms are not only influenced by the aerosol tools; they must also be both personal and quick. Norms are again learned from existing examples and more experienced creators. Artists will keep sketches of throwups they plan, complete, or admire in “black books.” These sketchbooks, visual records of their personal engagements with lettering craft, are a fascinating analog to the samplers of centuries before.

Nineteenth-century embroidered pieces served as a record of obedience and conformity to expected gender roles; present-day illicit throwies are on the contrary gestures of defiance and self-expression. But both are useful case studies for how letterform norms adjust to circumstances, mediums, and means of reinforcement.

For more about Craig’s work, check out his foundry website, Teeline Fonts.

Super excited for this presentation — hope to see you there!

Join us as type designer Mark Simonson speaks on the epic 70’s beauty Skin & Bones, a recent revival project with the font’s original designer, Douglas F. Jones. Skin & Bones has a bit of a harrowing history, despite its prominent usage in venues such as Austin City Limits. Jones received only a few hundred dollars for his design in the 70s. Even worse, Skin & Bones was pirated and distributed without Jones' consent over the years. In 2024, the two designers worked together to bring Skin & Bones into the digital age. Stories of synchronicity, connection, and artistic integrity are a welcome break from the spew of AI and piracy in design news. Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, September 30 2025

6:00 PM: Arrival and Mingle

6:30 PM – 8:00 PM: Presentation

Mpls Central Library - RKMC Room (Second Floor) 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

Unrelated housekeeping situations: due to technical difficulties with Substack permissions, a new one was set up. Sorry for any confusion — just getting the hang of this platform!