Setting prices for type

Years ago when I started selling my typefaces, my goal was to keep prices low. At the time, the prevailing wisdom on MyFonts was to set prices insanely high, then run massive promotions to lower the price to something reasonable. That seemed wrong to me. I just wanted to set the prices low to keep my typefaces affordable. Over the last decade or so, the situation has changed. MyFonts recommends that a single font start at $20. Apparently, if I set my prices too low, MyFonts won’t promote them. Subscription services are further complicating the pricing structure.

Setting prices for any artist is challenging, but I’ve noticed over time that most artists initially set their prices too low. I think I’ve fallen into that trap. I’m working on a new release right now1 and I’ve decided that I need to finally shift my pricing strategy. On August...

We got some breakfast Hot Pockets and they no longer ship with a paper “crisper” sleeve, instead recommending an air fryer for a crispier crust.

  1. A hot pocket fresh out of the air fryer is indeed crispy, but;
  2. It takes 15 minutes! Not exactly a quick breakfast anymore.

Me: I really need to wrap up this paper on deprofessionization in the design industry so I can move on to working on my dissertation.

Also me: Digging FOUR papers out from past classes that I never did anything with and revisiting them.

SbB Emote: A colorful faux emoji set built in Fontstruct

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was playing around with some new-to-me features and bricks in Fontstruct. After I finished SbB Roundabout1, I decided those techniques would work really well on a symbol font. So I started playing around with building a couple of little faux emoji. Then decided that I needed to add some color. And before long, I’ve built an adorable set of icons in Fontstruct… SbB Emote.

Characters from SbB Emote, a symbol font

I don’t know which my favorite is – either the robot or the minifig-inspired smiley. “Happy Frankenstein” is a classic, too. In total, the set has 63 glyphs. The build used over 140 different blocks and 6 colors. It’s probably the most complex Fontstruction I’ve made, since I normally like to keep it really simple.

Characters from...
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Adobe's Project Indigo a home run in tough lighting

I’ve been playing around with Adobe’s Project Indigo computational camera app recently. I’ve got an old, but completely functional iPhone 12 Pro. Tonight at a minor league baseball game, while we were waiting for the game to end and the post-game fireworks to begin, I decided to try Project Indigo out in some challenging light. First, from our seats on the first base line, I took a shot with the iPhone’s stock camera app:

The shot’s fine, but it’s clear the net was an issue. The iPhone processing made it seem far more prominent than it really was. I then tried to take the exact same composition with Project Indigo:

IDG_20250705_211832_526 Edited.

This looks a lot closer to reality. It handles the sky and the net better. You can’t really tell from this upload, but detail is much...

Fireflies baseball. A beautiful night to catch a minor league game.

A baseball game is taking place at a well-lit stadium with spectators in the stands and players on the field.

My dad randomly asked me if I wanted the typewriter my grandparents bought him when he graduated college. He used it in seminary and his first call. Uh, YES! So I now have a Royal Safari manual typewriter. Seems to work well. Just need a new ribbon.

Close up of keys on a typewriter.