iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 09/09/2026

I do wonder how long we can keep this ball in the air.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 07/09/2026

Another strong contender in the shudder olympics:

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 29/05/2026

The final act of the blackletter mystery — with, additionally, some unpublished work that I couldn’t help but share 🙂 hflr.io/eginvy5

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 01/04/2026

Aha! @korystamper.bsky.social’s new book arrived today, and the week ahead is suddenly immeasurably brighter!

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 05/03/2026

Today I learned that Cambridge University has published high resolution photographs of their collection of Baskerville punches. Cue the revivals!

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/02/2026

HOW have I never known the word “logodaedaly”?

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 15/01/2026

While the pasty incels who work the federal agencies continue to churn out feeble, bloodless AI pastiches of Axis propaganda, here’s how a living breathing artist powerfully invokes design history. This is by illustrator Emily K in South Philly, a free poster-sized download on her website: →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 07/01/2026

Achievement unlocked! Next stop: NYT Crossword fill.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 26/09/2025

There’s going to be a printed 12th Edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary! Even if you’re living that digital life, you should order one, for the splendid and thought-provoking delight of opening to a random page and seeing something unexpected. → hflr.io/mw12

A page from the 12th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, charmingly including a little tableau of BIRD HEADS.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 10/08/2025

I wish I could say it was my real one! It's about twenty takes in Notability on the iPad, vivisected and picked over, stitched together, and redrawn from scratch in Illustrator. :)

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 08/06/2025

The greatest gift I have ever received has been the introduction to the *millions* of people around the world who’ve sharpened their love of letterforms through my episode of “Abstract” on Netflix. This morning, a lovely email from a complete stranger in Krefeld, Germany — thanks, Melissa!

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 07/05/2025

To the Honorable Judge @darthbluesky.bsky.social: Budino has discovered that his longtime favorite, the slipper, sometimes has (when worn) a hard crunchy center (the human toe.) The literature advises that I’m supposed to discourage this, but I am weak to deny him this apex happiness. Advise?

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 26/03/2025

I don't think we'll ever know why scientists act like that.

A charmingly ambiguous headline from NPR: "These scientists are building a cat database to understand why they act like that"

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 25/03/2025

It’s presumably an algorithmically generated image, for a book that’s print-on-demand (and 150dpi, or halftoned, and in any case containing god knows what.) eBay has a lot of “type specimen books” like this…

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 05/03/2025

A vet once interrupted our meeting with *another* vet, having peeped our dog’s face through the glass. “Is this Oscar?” It was; do I know you? “I saw a slide of him at a conference,” he explained, which is how we learned that our puppy had been Patient Zero for canine flu on Long Island.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 03/03/2025

What do we think “half mast” looks like at McDonalds? Are both flags run down? Just the Stars and Stripes? Do they move the McDonalds flag to half mast if Mayor McCheese dies?

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 28/02/2025

Apple Intelligence has truly achieved the caliber of insane gibberish unseen since the days of the Newton MessagePad. Below, my phone's alarming summary of a voicemail, which in fact dealt with scheduling a time to meet with an electrician to compare halogen and LED light fixtures.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 27/02/2025

When next you need a break from all the doomscrolling, may I suggest a few minutes with CutAndPasteMovies: www.instagram.com/cutandpastem...

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 04/02/2025

That’s considerably better than what I keep getting, which are either (a) not actually letters, or (b) insanely baroque, but on inspection, also not actually letters.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 28/01/2025

“One-tenth of a line” of what? Type? Cocaine? Riflemen? Chorus girls? Sorry to be demanding, but such is my nitpickingry.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 24/01/2025

For anyone who felt that Bishop Budde’s words were a surprise, here are the first four pages of her book, published two years ago. She remains the very same person of principle, who takes seriously her obligations to the public.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 05/01/2025

An opportunity to improve legibility, at no cost! For @nysdmv, and others. Originally, license plates had bubbly letters because of how they were fabricated: characters were stamped in relief, and their faces were painted by a roller. But today, → (1/4)

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 23/12/2024

A *significant* portion of my brain was shaped by these two books, some of my most cherished childhood possessions.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 12/12/2024

A word I learned today, which goes straight into the kerning proofs.

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 03/12/2024

It's hard to believe there isn't a greeting card for this

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 25/11/2024

How @nymag.com deftly speaks to the importance of editors:

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

8½/ In the Threads paragraph on the bottom, the combination of a slightly tighter fit, slightly looser leading, and a slightly wider measure, all collaborate to encourage us to *read* rather than to *look.* →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

7½/ But below, we have both browsers at the same 1440px width, and the cyan line is the Bluesky's smaller measyure. On Threads (below), it's about 5% longer, lengthening the line, and further heightening the momentum that carries us from word to word, and then line to line: →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

6/ Also, the leading used on Bluesky (left) is a pixel shorter than what’s used on Threads (right). The combination of these effects on Bluesky — a larger lowercase, a more generous fit, and tighter leading — all serve to invert the natural relationship one wants…

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

5/ Of course this has a compounding effect, making entire lines run longer. Here’s the same text on both platforms, again with Bluesky on top, and Threads below. Threads manages to fit a whole extra word on the line, and this really does add up: →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

4½/ This is Bluesky (above) and Threads (below), and you can see the cumulative effect: the same word is slightly wider as rendered on Bluesky. →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

3½/ Which means that as you nudge the typeface down in size, its lowercase becomes relatively larger. Below, as used by Bluesky (left) and Threads (right): Bluesky’s *outlines* are taller, because a smaller optical size is being invoked. →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

2½/ It’s not that the type is bigger, and it’s not that the kerning or tracking is different: it’s that the actual outlines are different. That image, again: →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 17/11/2024

A colleague was asking whether I, too, found Bluesky in the browser to be a little harder to read than Threads. I definitely do! My suspicions as to why have indeed borne out — with an unexpected twist. 1/9 →

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Jonathan Hoefler @jonathanhoefler.com · 03/08/2023

This chart from the “Uncial” page on Wikipedia is a real dog’s dinner. In a related story: bacteria evolved into trees, which became dinosaurs, evolving into birds, then becoming primates, then insurance adjusters, then Bigfoot, then crocodiles, and finally into modern consumers.

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