2022 Annual TypeTogether Meeting

Working as a remote company has its advantages, but it also means we don’t get to see each other in person except for once a year. This year we met again in Spain (during the summer heatwave, unfortunately) to discuss our workflow, current projects, plan the next year, and just have some fun. We also added a few more people to our ranks since our last annual get-together and enjoyed meeting them in person for the first time.

Workflow

Two days were dominated by discussions of workflow and how to improve it within each department. Software, hardware, schedules, and individual bandwidth were all up for consideration, and good ideas were tossed around like candy at a parade. The great thing is that we were all feeling the growing pains of being a company committed to excellence, but that doesn’t mean there’s not the real pain of growing into what we hope to be.

Releases

We discussed and worked — a lot — on our newest family release since it was so close to being done: Aneto, Aneto Text, and Aneto Skyline. (You’ve probably seen it by now.) We reviewed how other releases went this year and mapped out what we expected the next six months (and more) to look like. José even got up early to teach a crash course on readability and legibility, based somewhat on his instructive book. (Yes, they are two different things and typographers are uniquely qualified to define what they mean and demonstrate them.)

Colleague updates

We got an update from Nina Faulhaber on her upcoming Aeroplan and Emma Marichal on her Ploquine family, including some background info and future plans we hadn’t seen before. Roxane Gataud introduced a possible upcoming TypeTogether project, Pooja Saxena gave an overview of her current research for another company project, and Linda Kudrnovská gave us a first glimpse of a Czech-funded docuseries she is coordinating with the many great designers of that wonderful country. (We’ll be sure to let you know when it’s available on streaming services.)

Tour of appreciation

It can’t be all serious, so of course we had some time to relax, enjoy the pool, walk through Barcelona on the last day, and visit the Salvador Dalí museum. One of our favorite tours was the thoroughly engrossing Museu de la Tècnica de l’Empordà, basically a museum of industrial technologies from their inception. Like a perfectly preserved time capsule, one floor of the museum held the largest collection of typewriters, another was dedicated to sewing machines, and another mixed historic technology (clothing irons, bikes, cameras) with ephemera such as Michelin books and advertisements. A TypeTogether meeting cannot go without our mascots Tiki the Traveler and Rino de Dino, who now makes his home with Roxane. (All Instagram accounts remain the same, for those who can track them down.)

Building ligatures book launch & presentations

The capstone to the week was our Building ligatures book launch event, hosted by the Barcelona design school (Escola Bau) and co-organised by TypeThursday. Besides having our books available, four presentations were given: “Typography in web development” by Elena Ramirez, “Aeroplan” by Nina Faulhaber, “Ploquine” by Emma Marichal, and “Building ligatures” by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione. It was a wonderful way to end the week, with designers who enjoy type and were fun to hang around.

As always, everything we do is for those who use or love typography. We hope this comes across in the font families we create, how we serve you (our extended family), and the excellence we put into each step. It was another great opportunity to meet together and we can’t wait for the next one!