13.11.2024, WEDNESDAY
NEW YORK

(Almost) complete silence. For two weeks. No communication, no phone, no writing, no reading. Just trees, squirrels, chipmunks, shooting stars, light reflecting on the clear surface of a pond, bright sunrises, and clear nights, far too warm for November. That was my reality for 14 days during a silent meditation retreat, I just came back from. Somewhere, middle of nowhere, central Massachusetts. 

A world almost void of language, almost void of type. The only samples of text being the labels on the food (in Papyrus) and the welcome letter (in a standard sans serif). It’s a calmer world. It’s a world I normally don’t talk about in my professional practice but a world I have been entering frequently for 10 years, and it is an integral part of my life.

Arriving there, I was exhausted. I slept the majority of the first three days. No one being able to reach me, having to be no one, was bliss. I could finally calm down. I think communication is always more exhausting than we realise. Leaving retreat was one of those pivotal moments, for many reasons. A moment to reflect on my practice and what I really want from this life. This experience solidified a thought I’d had for a long time: I don’t want to use Instagram or social media anymore.

I’ve been thinking about this decision ever since I got my iPhone, and consequently Instagram, four years ago, that fall during COVID. I had just graduated from the Type and Media master program, was about to my own independent practice, decided to stay in The Hague, and wanted to start a type foundry.

While I was studying, I did not have a smartphone (there was even a long period where I did not have a phone at all). I did not have Instagram until I graduated. I never viewed the work I produced as a student as something that needed to be shared immediately. I did not want to get into the loop of creating for outside recognition. Studying was supposed to be my space to explore and fail (the ultimate art school cliché). Not having social media is still something I strongly advise to every student (an advice that gets ignored every time).

During my graduation dinner with my parents, my mother pulled out my graduation gift—her old iPhone. I was 25 at the time. A very generous and thoughtful gesture, contributing to my new career and future. I remember the exact feeling at that time: gratitude for my parents supporting and trusting in my decision to sustain myself on my own, and this sinking feeling of losing my independence. No longer would I have to scribble down maps on paper, print out entrance tickets, or use my iPod. 

That time was the beginning of so many things. An influx of communication: late-night texts, laughing and crying on FaceTime, nervously refreshing for responses, memes, new music, insights into friends’ vacations, collaboration requests, admiration, gratification, scolding messages, declarations of love, devastating political updates. A constant stream of scattered information coming from various platforms.

I downloaded Instagram, more as a strategy than for the urge to be seen. It offered me a quick way to get recognition for my work and a certain reach. Essentially, it gave me the freedom to live the life I have now and to be able to work on my own projects and sell typefaces.

The first weeks were weird, being so late to the trend. I felt illiterate. It was a world of codes to learn: when to watch a story, which typeface to use in my stories, how to write on there, what emojis to use. And is it cooler to write in all lowercase or not? (I still don’t know.)

As soon as I made my account, I swore to myself to delete it as soon as my practice was more established. I made the rule to never share my personal life on there unless someone tagged me. It always felt wrong to live life with the idea of sharing it. Everything becomes so transactional.

Strategically, I grew my followers: (semi) regular posts, collaborations, engaging with the app—all that stuff. I knew I needed my work to be seen if I wanted to make and sell typefaces independently.

Release days are surreal experiences. You work on a typeface sometimes for years, only for it to be reduced to 10 slides on Instagram, a caption, and some stories. I remember the first release I had on Instagram. It was Zaft2 with Jacob Wise.
A wonderful experience, one of my favorite collaborations. But release days are exhausting. That particular day, I was sitting alone at my parents’ dinner table in Germany during summer holidays. I was incredibly nervous and exhausted from the rush of incoming likes and comments. I could do nothing but stare at my phone, frantically going over the slides, refreshing, answering.

Over the past months, I had many conversations with friends and strangers about Instagram. It seems like most people resent the platform, but almost everyone I know is using it regardless. My reasons for leaving are not new, but I will outline them anyway. 

I really dislike the platform, and I really dislike Meta. I dislike the huge impact it has on mental health on a large societal scale. I hate the constant judgment, the comparison. I hate the arbitrary, addictive nature of the algorithm. The tone of voice you need to nail, the persona you become, the anxiety that comes with “who follows me or doesn’t?” “What’s the perfect follower/following ratio to be cool but still approachable?” etc. As a young teacher (the same age or even younger than some of my students), I don’t know if I should follow or interact with my students. I don’t even know if I am even allowed to. I hate doom scrolling, and yet I would waste away hours watching meaningless reels. I dislike the constant communication. Having to be available 24/7. I dislike how politics, art life, and personal life intermingle—a picture of dead children next to the latest ampersand I drew. I hate that I can deinstall the app and always come back to reinstalling it. I don’t like what it does to my brain. I hate close-friends stories, I hate noticing being blocked from someone’s stories and wondering why. The reactions, the fire emojis, the lack of poetry and beauty. The quick hype, the speed, having to think strategically. I hate how the app makes me feel, how it makes me think, and how it makes me behave.

So why would I share my work and consequently spend a substantial part of my life on a platform that I dislike so much?

Since the beginning of this year, I have been contemplating on what the best alternative would be for myself. I am also excited to see if it is possible to run a type foundry outside of Instagram (Velvetyne seems to have done it pretty successfully for the past year).
I concluded that I wanted to develop more long-form and slow content. I would like to develop a space that challenges me to reflect on my practice and on type design as a whole without an instant feedback loop.

My current solution is to develop an email newsletter every few weeks featuring the following:

• Release updates
• Beta versions of my typefaces
• Free trial fonts
• Insights into my projects and practice
• Conversations with collaborators and friends
• Anything else that I’m interested in: visual findings, references, and research

It’ll be professional updates and personal stories, both intertwining, sometimes fictional, sometimes real.

The content of the emails will be archived on my website and complemented with additional content on a more frequent basis. But I don’t want to define a clear format for this just yet. I trust that it’ll shape over time. 

My practice is first and foremost about storytelling; my typefaces are as much stories as they are tools. And this is just another format for speaking about the things I find important and that excite me.

Will this change my practice? Possibly, since it allows me to have more space to make more considerate decisions and more time to dive deeper into my work. But I don’t intend to change the type of work I do. 

In terms of releases, I am currently working on Tonka Cyrillic (with Jovana Jocic), Tonka Italic (with Huw Williams), Gauche Ultra Italic (with Jan Egbers), and Seasummer Cyrillic (on Future Fonts, with Stefaniia Bodnia), all coming up in the next months. More about them and other projects very soon!

Letters are everywhere. We often don’t realize the amount of different typefaces we encounter daily. Yet, to the average consumer, type seems like an inaccessible, complicated, niche world—too closed-off, too specialized, and weird to be understood. In my opinion this leads to the discipline being often extremely elitist and conventional. For the past few years, I have been trying to break down those boundaries. Because I love type, and I love stories. I love romanticizing life, finding hidden meaning in the smallest coincidences and details. I love codes and ornaments and symbols and language. This new format will be about all of this, about breaking the boundaries of my practice and about my search to find a new perspective to talk about type (not just to other type designers). In that sense, a love letter to letters.

Love,
C

P.S. To end this on a sentimental note: there is precisely one thing I will certainly miss dearly—my “swifties” group chat. A small group chat with my good friends (some of whom I have never met IRL), which started as a joke one and a half years ago and turned into a very consistent and serious endeavor. Almost daily updates solely about Taylor Swift, conspiracy theories, fashion analysis, conspiracies, breakup playlists, and anticipation for new album releases. I will miss this sweet, comforting feeling of community, of shared excitement over something as ridiculous as the life of a pop star, and of unconditional support and friendship. I will remember you All Too Well <3