iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 27/09/2026

& then...? From the Shady Characters archive, delve into the history of the ampersand, or “and” sign, which goes all the way back to ancient Rome. Start at shadycharacters.co.u... to understand the hows & whys of this most elegant mark.

A collection of roman and italic typographic ampersands.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 06/09/2026

From the Shady Characters archive comes the most iconic of all shady characters: the mighty, the maligned, the magnificent interrobang. Go to shadycharacters.co.u... to get the full story. (Image courtesy of Penny Speckter.)

Three of the original interrobang designs, each one mixing an exclamation mark and question mark to varying effect.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 23/08/2026

From the Shady Characters archive: what exactly are we supposed to call this mark: “#”? Read about the long history of the octothorpe (or maybe the pound sign), and its many names, at shadycharacters.co.u....

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 24/07/2026

The Japanese translation of “Empire of the Sum” was published last year by Hara Shobo, but my own copy arrived in the post only the other day. What a nice edition! Many thanks to Hara Shobo for sending me one. Take a look at www.harashobo... if you′re interested in ordering a copy! 1/2

The cover of the Japanese edition of "Empire of the Sum", showing the title and author's name in Japanese and English. The cover is illustrated with an image of four people writing with quills and counting with counting tokens.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 11/07/2026

So, I’m walking down to the canal today with my youngest so he can ride his bike along the tow path, and what do I see but two clumps of reeds which have floated into the canal basin from somewhere farther along the canal. And I think to myself: “This is how papyrus arrived in Egypt!” 1/3

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 28/06/2026

Take a trip to the south of France at the height of summer courtesy of the Shady Characters archive: shadycharacters.co.u....

A view from the entrance to Narbo Martius, a museum in Narbonne, France, on a sunny day with a blue sky.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 31/05/2026

Inventing a new punctuation mark turns out to be very hard. Mostly, they fade away, never to be seen again - but the “quasiquote” does not deserve that fate. Read more about this ingenious but precarious mark at the Shady Characters archive: shadycharacters.co.u... (Image courtesy of Ned Brooks.)

A description of the quasiquote from the 1944 Fancyclopedia, written by Jack Speer.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 09/04/2026

I stumbled on Hurlingham's bookshop by Putney Bridge underground station while visiting London. What a treat! Stop by if you get the chance.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 27/03/2026

Were you ever put through a slide show of someone’s holiday snaps? Well, I visited Egypt in February and have been telling anyone who will listen how fascinating a trip it was. Lacking a Kodak slide projector, I’ve written a few words about our experiences: staging.shadycharact...

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 08/02/2026

3D printing is cool. 3D printing in the nineteenth century? Even better. Computerised 3D printing with 19th-century hardware? 😎 Read about two different approaches to modernising the Monotype system in the Shady Characters archive: shadycharacters.co.u... and shadycharacters.co.u....

Three views of a computerised Monotype typecasting machine, showing pneumatic tubes and electronic components connected to cast iron machinery.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 19/10/2025

From the Shady Characters archive, journey back to where it all began! Read about the life, death, and afterlife of the pilcrow (¶), or paragraph mark: shadycharacters.co.u.... (Image courtesy of the of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: search.digital-scrip....)

A red capitulum, or paragraph mark, sits at the centre of a block of black handwritten text.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 08/10/2025

It’s almost here! “Face with Tears of Joy” is having a launch party at Linlithgow’s best bookshop, Far From the Madding Crowd, at 6.30pm on Wednesday October 15th. Join us for drinks, snacks, chat, and a reading from the book. Get the details at shadycharacters.co.u..., and see you there!

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the evolution of the eponymous symbol from emoticon to emoji.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 15/09/2025

Podcasts! I recently recorded two of them, in fact, courtesy of Mignon Fogarty, also known as Grammar Girl (bsky.app/profile/gra...). Head over to Shady Characters for links: shadycharacters.co.u....

Banner for a podcast with Mignon Fogarty and Keith Houston

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 05/09/2025

A reminder! “Face with Tears of Joy” is having a launch party at Linlithgow’s best bookshop, Far From the Madding Crowd, at 6.30pm on Wednesday October 15th for drinks, snacks, chat, and a reading from the book. Get the details at shadycharacters.co.u..., and I look forward to seeing you there!

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 29/08/2025

I found Elizabeth Goodspeed's short, sweet history of business card design (themalin.co/journal/...) courtesy of Dan Cederholm's newsletter (simplebits.com). Here's one of mine, printed back in 2012 (shadycharacters.co.u...) at in Robert Smail's in Innerleithen (www.nts.org.uk/visit...).

A business card reading "KEITH HOUSTON", then "shadycharacters.co.uk" on the next line. There's a red ampersand at the bottom right.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 22/08/2025

“Face with Tears of Joy” is having a launch party! I’ll be at Linlithgow’s best bookshop, Far From the Madding Crowd, at 6.30pm on Wednesday October 15th for drinks, snacks, and maybe even a reading from the book. Get the details at shadycharacters.co.u..., and I look forward to seeing you there!

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 08/08/2025

Audiobooks galore today! First, you can win one of four copies of the “Face with Tears of Joy” audiobook at shadycharacters.co.u.... (There’s nothing complicated to do - just leave a comment!)

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the eponymous symbol as it evolves from an emoticon to an emoji.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 01/08/2025

It's competition time again! Go to shadycharacters.co.u... to win one of four copies of the audio version of “Face with Tears of Joy” - just leave a comment on that post and you're in with a chance to win.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 21/07/2025

With “Face with Tears of Joy” (shadycharacters.co.u...) now available to buy around the world, I took some time to revisit an older topic at shadycharacters.co.uk – through an emoji lens 🔍, of course! The question at hand: do emoji obey Zipf’s law? Read more here: shadycharacters.co.u....

A graph of normalised emoji frequencies, showing a rapid decline from the first, most common emoji through to a "long tail" of less used symbols.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 18/07/2025

Two Keiths talking about emoji: what more could you want? How about a copy of my book? Well, you're in luck - Emojipedia are giving away three copies! Visit the same link (blog.emojipedia.org/...) to enter the competition. 2/2

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 17/07/2025

To mark World Emoji Day 🎉 (and, uh, the publication of my book 📖), I put together a little emoji quiz for my publisher, W. W. Norton. Have a crack at it here! wwnorton326.outgrow.... (And buy my book here! shadycharacters.co.u...)

A table showing emoji arranged in rows according to their category, and with the emoji in each row sorted from most positive on the left to most negative on the right.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 17/07/2025

It’s publication day (again!) for “Face with Tears of Joy”! The book has been out in North America for a couple of weeks, and now that World Emoji Day (worldemojiday.com/) has rolled around, it's time to launch it everywhere else. Get it wherever you buy your books! shadycharacters.co.u...

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 17/07/2025

Similar scenes here at Shady Characters HQ 🚅

A photograph of a toy version of "Doctor Yellow", a yellow-painted shinkansen used to measure railway tracks in Japan

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 12/07/2025

“Face with Tears of Joy” is one of Kobo's best new non-fiction books for July! www.kobo.com/us/en/l....

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the eponymous symbol evolving from an emoticon to an emoji.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 11/07/2025

Another podcast! You are WELCOME. This time round I spoke to Mike Carruthers, whose “Something You Should Know” programme is more than 20 years old and still going strong. Mike and I had plenty of time to really dig into the history of emoji. 1/2

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 10/07/2025

I had fun yesterday doing a couple of interviews for BBC radio: first on Radio 4's Today programme, together with Susie Dent, which listeners in the UK can listen to here (www.bbc.co.uk/sounds...) at around 2:55. 1/2

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the evolution of the eponymous symbol from emoticon to 3D rendered emoji.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 04/07/2025

Only two more days to enter the giveaway for one of two free copies of “Face with Tears of Joy”! Non-US readers can enter here: shadycharacters.co.u....

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the evolution of the eponymous emoji.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 27/06/2025

A quick reminder that “Face with Tears of Joy” will be published soon (July 1st in the USA; July 17th, or World Emoji Day, in the UK), and that I'm giving away two free copies to non-US readers! Visit shadycharacters.co.u... to enter.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 26/06/2025

“Face with Tears of Joy” is one of Kirkus’s 20 best books to read in July! www.kirkusreviews.co...

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 20/06/2025

“Face with Tears of Joy” will be published soon (July 1st in the USA; July 17th, or World Emoji Day, in the UK), and to celebrate I'm giving away two free copies to non-US readers! Visit shadycharacters.co.u... to enter.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 17/06/2025

“😂” is one of “the best summer books of 2025, according to St. Louis librarians” (www.stlpr.org/show/s...): “From faces constructed from seldom used punctuation, to emoji taking on meanings much more complex than the simple shapes they are [...] it’s a great nonfiction beach read.” 1/2

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 15/06/2025

What are emoji all about, really? There’s enough to write a book on them (cf shadycharacters.co.u...), but for now, this essay from the Shady Characters archive packs the essentials into a few hundred words: shadycharacters.co.u....

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 06/06/2025

If you want to learn even more about emoji, you can pre-order my book, “Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji” (shadycharacters.co.u...), which will be published next month. Not long now at all! 3/4

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy" (W. W. Norton, 2025), showing the evolution of the FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY from an emoticon to a shiny, modern 3D-rendered version.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 06/06/2025

I have made a thing! Visit emoji.shadycharacter... to see the Shady Characters Periodic Table of Emoji and read about how it came together. There’s a lot of detail in there, although you can read shadycharacters.co.u... to get a shorter intro. 1/4

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 03/06/2025

The paperback edition of “The Book” is one of Barnes & Noble’s “Best History Books of 2025 (So Far)”: www.barnesandnoble.c...! (Which gives me an excuse, of course, to repost Sarah Bibel’s fantastic cover design.)

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 01/06/2025

Why does the percent sign (%) look the way it does? It’s probably not why you think. Learn more in this post from the Shady Characters archive: shadycharacters.co.u... (Public domain image from archive.org/stream/r....)

An Italian manuscript from 1425 using the abbreviation "pco" for "per cento".

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 18/05/2025

From the Shady Characters archive: scribbled or scrawled, how do we write ampersands, and is there room for a new ampersand design? Designer Rebecca Kirch dives into the unregulated world of the handwritten "&". shadycharacters.co.u.... (Image courtesy of Rebecca Kirch.)

A series of handwritten ampersands and plus signs, overwritten on top of one another.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 16/05/2025

Another review! “An excellent read for those interested in history, technology, and the global scale of digital communication,” says Library Journal (www.libraryjournal.c...). More quotes below 👇 1/3

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 10/05/2025

“A pleasurable and well-researched journey into pop iconography” is Kirkus′s verdict. A good first review! You can read the full review at Kirkus (www.kirkusreviews.co...) or read a few more quotes below: 1/4

The cover of "Face with Tears of Joy", showing the evolution of the 😂 emoji from ASCII emoticon to shiny, lifelike emoji.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 27/04/2025

Just a couple of days until the paperback edition of “The Book” is published in the US!* Get the details at the blog (shadycharacters.co.u...) or order from B&N at a nice little discount (www.barnesandnoble.c...). * The UK edition will be out in June.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 23/04/2025

So! @barnesandnoble.com are running a promotion on pre-order books, like the paperback edition of “The Book”. If you order before the weekend, you'll get 12% off, and another 10% if you're a premium member. If you haven't already, now's a great time to order a copy! www.barnesandnoble.c... 1/2

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 18/04/2025

A parcel arrived today from W. W. Norton: a box full of paperbacks of “The Book”! This is the first time I've seen the paperback itself, rather than only PDFs, and honestly, it looks great. Maybe even better than the hardback? (But that would be tantamount to picking a favourite child.) 1/3

The paperback edition of the book, featuring a cream band on a green background.

A photograph of a page spread from "The Book", showing a full-colour illustration of a medieval manuscript that depicts a monk drinking from a barrel of wine.

A box full of paperback editions of "The Book", featuring a cream band on a green background.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 11/04/2025

Introducing “Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji”! ‘😂’ will be published in July this year, and you can pre-order the paperback from all the usual places. Visit shadycharacters.co.u... to learn more. 1/5

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 29/03/2025

Exciting news this week! "The Book" will be published soon in paperback, with a spiffy new cover as shown here, and can be pre-ordered from all the usual places. All the info is at shadycharacters.co.u..., along with a few bonus book-related links!

Cover of the paperback edition of "The Book", showing the title on a cream band against a dark green background. W.W. Norton, 2025.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 17/01/2025

A belated happy new year to all Shady Characters reader! I hope 2025 is treating you as well as it can. Here to ease the pain are a few links on the usual subjects of punctuation, typography and emoji: shadycharacters.co.u.... Enjoy!

A sculpture of the peace symbol in two halves, overlooking a beach in Adelaide, Australia.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 16/12/2024

It's the 2024 Shady Characters gift guide! Which calculator should you buy your loved ones, and why is the £360 Casio S100X? Answers here: shadycharacters.co.uk/2024/12/2024...

The cover of "Empire of the Sum" by Keith Houston.

Slide rule owned by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. (CC0 image courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum.)

A Braun ET-66 calculator. (CC BY-SA 2.0 image courtesy of Pinot Dita at Wikimedia Commons.)

A 25th anniversary edition of the HP-12c calculator. (CC BY 2.0 image courtesy of “striegel” on Flickr.)

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 10/11/2024

Bombs, books and generative AI! A new post at Shady Characters, and one that takes a look at how this AI malarkey intersects with a rather older information technology: shadycharacters.co.uk/2024/11/bomb....

A graph of the carbon-14 "bomb pulse" caused by atmospheric nuclear testing.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 24/09/2024

It's national punctuation day! Only, uh, the NPD website seems to have gone dark: www.nationalpunctuationday.com. But we at Shady Characters do not yield to unpaid domain fees, and punctuation is to be celebrated every day of the year!

Interrobang image courtesy of Penny Speckter.

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 08/09/2024

Happy world ampersand day! The '&' was one of the first characters I wrote about for Shady Characters back in 2011. My series on the '&' is still available (shadycharacters.co.uk/series/the-a...), and it has also guest starred in many posts since then (shadycharacters.co.uk/tag/ampersand/).

A line drawing of an ornate hotel with the caption "Hotel Ampersand".

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Keith Houston @shadycharacters.co.uk · 24/08/2024

Now up, Miscellany № 103! In which we learn that crows can count (out loud!); microchips are as cheap as chips; and the calculator lives again (if you own an iPad): shadycharacters.co.uk/2024/08/misc.... (Image by Michael Holley.)

A Unicom 141P printing desktop calculator in a beige enclosure with black keys

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