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Christopher Slye

@slye.bsky.social
894 followers 426 following 1.3K posts

Type business, licensing, design, production, education. Fontstand Cooperative. Letterform Archive board. Adobe Type from 1997–2020. Collector of rare compact discs. Cocktail enthusiast. slyetype.com

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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“AI researchers have also warned that as models grow more capable, they increasingly recognize when they are being watched and adjust their behavior accordingly, which makes ‌it harder ⁠to monitor model behavior.”
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Cool old train locomotive parked at the Salinas train station.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I literally have never heard of “Choosin’ Texas” — and other than this post I still don’t really know what the deal with it is, other than whatever I passively absorbed from the discourse just now.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
As a former Type West instructor (and current Letterform Archive board member), I’m incredibly happy about the growth of this program and the quality of the student work over the years. I’ll be there tonight and I’m looking forward to celebrating this milestone with everyone!
letterformarchive.org
Type For All! Ten Years of Type West | Letterform Archive
Come celebrate our students from 31 countries and their quirky, beautiful, and (yes!) practical typefaces.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
One of my favorite things is to scan an old owner’s manual and share it on archive.org. There is such an irritating grift from sites charging money for PDFs of old manuals. My most-viewed item at the Internet Archive is the manual for my old Denon DCD-910 CD player.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It's so gloriously stupid and funny.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I am really really really disappointed with @agrobbonta.oag.ca.gov on this.
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Max Phillips @signaltype.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The lintel over the stairs is very low, and while no one in our family is tall enough to be troubled by it, some of Ben's bandmates are over six feet. So Kirsten fastened this up as a reminder.
Miniature Scheich duck stuck to lintel
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I got a look at all of these a couple days ago. Good stuff!
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The Onion @theonion.com · 18/09/2026
Researchers Identify Gene Responsible For Visualizing Murder After Touching Missing Person’s Sweater theonion.com/researchers-identify-g…
Researchers Identify Gene Responsible For Visualizing Murder After Touching Missing Person’s Sweater
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I have a fond memory of dropping in to Eli’s one night in 1992 when Ted Danson, Whoopie Goldberg, and Will Smith were hanging out there, very low-key, until Will Smith jumped up onto the stage with the house band and started rapping, working the house into a frenzy.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Setting aside the substance of the article, I don’t at all like the use of the unexplained acronym “WFH” in the first paragraph, as if everyone knows what it means. (Yes, I do, but it’s not the point.) Seems like not a great journalistic practice. www.wired.com/story/agains...
In the spring of 2020, as a new and highly contagious virus spread throughout the country, the US came to a standstill. The economy shut down, cities emptied, and white-collar workers were sent home en masse. Platforms like Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams surged in usage as WFH became ubiquitous. From remote schooling and virtual weddings to app-based grocery delivery and livestreamed concerts, the pandemic accelerated and cemented society’s increasing reliance on digital platforms. Already one of the most powerful forces in the American economy, the tech sector suddenly became the infrastructure underpinning every aspect of life.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Ten years ago I was in Warsaw, where OpenType variable font technology was jointly announced at ATypI by Adobe, Apple, Google and Microsoft after substantial technical and diplomatic efforts. I was there to give a talk, but it turned into one of the strangest type conference moments I’ve had…
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Stephen Coles @stewf.com · 16/09/2026
I was searching for something else and run into one of the wildest studies I’ve ever seen: www.healthline.com/nutrition/co... “Lab research has shown that [cockroach milk] is more than three times as nutritious as cow’s milk, buffalo milk, and human milk … providing all nine essential amino acids.”
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
It’s been a while since I posted a photo of a critter in the backyard. Hello, titmouse.
An oak titmouse perched sideways on a chain above an orange bird feeder.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This, by the way, is an incredible book. Vivid and heartbreaking. It’s a layered account of everything that happened that day, often described in very personal terms by those most involved and most affected.
bookshop.org
Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham “Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encount...
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I wish I had taken a screenshot of my own at the time, because I got up and sat down in the kitchen to look at the news, and saw a web page that was almost blank white with a few random lines of text — just barely functional at that moment, and I thought, “What is going on?”
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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The funny thing is, that was not a bad time to be in NYC as a New Yorker because people were very gentle with each other. Strangers would walk up to you and ask you how you were doing and I’ve never had more deep conversations with strangers just while we were waiting for the subway
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
After holding out a long time, I finally upgraded to iOS 26. My god, this UX is really terrible in fundamental ways.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This book looks great. Anyone know of a good U.S. source? (The shop in the link doesn’t ship outside the UK.)
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Aside from it being illegal and unaffordable, and generally not credible, it’s just obvious that he would never give $5K to any non-MAGA person. If it ever came to pass (which it won’t), more likely he’d arrange for everyone to get a $5K credit for AI tokens or something.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The story told here is not unlike how many type designers worry about their creations in the age of IP consolidation under private equity.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I am at the Letterform Archive, and this relevant specimen turned up.
A label: Acme Beer / Non-Fattening
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WebDesignMuseum @webdesignmuseum.org · 09/09/2026
Grunge Web Design Style in the 1990s – Spectacle in 1996 – Urban Diary in 1997 – Conscience Records in 1998 – p2 output in 1998
Spectacle website in 1996Urban Diary website in 1997Conscience Records website in 1998p2 output website in 1998
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This drink — Border Patrol, attributed to Nick Ramsdell from Double Dragon in Portland — is inky-dark and really delicious. 1 oz. each mezcal, lime juice and Fernet Vallet, with ½ oz. rich Demerara syrup and a generous pinch of salt.
A drink in a rocks glass with ice.
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Stephen Coles @stewf.com · 07/09/2026
The media continues to hype AI as if it’s inevitable & broadly accepted by the public. Meanwhile, the public: How much confidence, if any, do you have in companies that develop AI systems? A great deal — 6 Quite a lot — 9 Some — 31 Very little — 28 None — 21 www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Fascinated (and slightly irked I guess!) that people keep referring to “Coyote vs. ACME”. It’s not an acronym, “acme” is a word! It means “the best” and it’s why it became a generic company name in those old cartoons.
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Geobica @geobica.com · 28/08/2026
Tell #2 is text, by which I mean both the content of the text (which has a very recognizable voice at this point) and the way it's formatted, including fonts. Below is a list of the fonts I've found to be most common in a sample of 2120 likely Vibe Designed websites:
1. Inter (603 sites)
2. Arial (429 sites)
3. JetBrains Mono (258 sites)
4. ui-monospace (217 sites)
5. -apple-system (206 sites)
6. ui-sans-serif (153 sites)
7. Geist (141 sites)
8. Space Grotesk (133 sites)
9. Times New Roman (113 sites)
10. system-ui (107 sites)11. Fraunces (106 sites)
12. monospace (105 sites)
13. IBM Plex Mono (97 sites)
14. DM Sans (96 sites)
15. Geist Mono (93 sites)
16. Plus Jakarta Sans (70 sites)
17. Hanken Grotesk (68 sites)
18. Outfit (56 sites)
19. Space Mono (51 sites)
20. Georgia (50 sites)
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I’ve lived near San Francisco for my entire life, so I’m glad to see the map basically got it right.
A map from mydialect.us that is mostly red in California.
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Letterform Archive @letterformarchive.org · 04/09/2026
We’re honored to host this remarkable documentary as part of our effort to document type design history. It joined the otherwise orphaned Carl Dair and P. H. Rädisch at Enschedé: The Last Days of Metal Type. vimeo.com/showcase/7017826
vimeo.com
Documentaries on Type Design
Historical videos about the art and craft of typeface design. Presented by Letterform Archive.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Nick Sherman has written a very nice review of Rich Kegler’s movie about Jim Rimmer. I have it on DVD but haven’t watched it since it came out!
boxd.it
A ★★★★★ review of Making Faces: Metal Type in the 21st Century (2011)
Today I thought I’d take a few minutes to add Jim Rimmer’s Duensing Titling typeface to the Fonts In Use database. As often happens with Fonts In Use, the task I thought would only take a few minutes ...
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I just don’t see how uDiscover Music can say “30% off sitewide” — sitewide! — and then admit in the fine print “not really”.
An email ad that says, in part: “uDiscover Music … Take 30% off sitewide with our End Of Summer Sale! … *Limited time only. Exclusions apply.”
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Erik @letterror.typo.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026
Hey book friend. What is the format intended to contain all vital information of a book? You know what vCard does for contact info. Author, title, publication info, ISBN, dates, summary, pages, dimensions, maybe even a photo, notes. Probably would be text, utf-8 or unicode, maybe json […]
typo.social
Original post on typo.social
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LettError Type @letterror.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
An optical size for big? Pixels without hinting? Ligatures that are not really ligatures? Nothing is ever what it seems in type (but everything does its job and you didn’t even notice!) Action Grotesque: platform independent, private equity free. At Commercial Type commercialtype.com/catalog/acti...
This shows the optical size variants for the Action Grotesque typeface. Particularly the registered symbol (®). In the default it is proportioned to work at 8 pt. But that makes it a bit chonky if you use the typeface at bigger sizes. So these variants are a bit smaller.This shows Action Grotesque in different rasterisations. Not all these screens use Truetype hinting. The only way to get consistent results everywhere is to adapt the geometry of the typeface design itself. And that is what Action Grotesque has. Readable on every surface.Rather than include dozens of ligatures, Action Grotesque has alternates for the lowercase f and t. These connect in some contexts, reducing the visual complexity a bit. The connectors are still separate characters so they respect tracking.
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 28/08/2026
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I'm delighted that a substantial number of comments on this video are complaints about the fonts.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I thought my map would look more filled-in. I think of “stayed a while” as maybe 5 or more days (and maybe I should have marked a couple more that way, but 🤷‍♂️).
whereidlive.com
United States: where I've been
Fill in your own version and see where the two of you disagree.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Countdown to Trump issuing an executive order that Pluto is a planet because dwarf planet status is woke.
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
On 9/11, US airspace closed, Canada launched Operation Yellow Ribbon. Gander, a town of 10,000, received 38 airliners. Residents immediately sheltered, fed, clothed, and supported stranded passengers for days, providing this hospitality free of charge. interestingengineering.com/culture/oper...
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
“Open access to creativity” is certainly an interesting choice of words.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Last week we visited the U.S.S. Midway Museum in San Diego (super interesting!), and I have to hand it to all the mannequins that dressed up the place. (Also, love the early Apple PowerBook they included!)
A small office for NIS personnel. A mannequin with an NIS jacket looks in a file cabinet. There is a desk with an Apple PowerBook on it.A mannequin dressed as an officer stands in a small but comfortable stateroom.Two mannequins dressed as workers in the ship’s mess hall.A mannequin kneeling on the aircraft carrier’s main flight deck.
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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Details (Pittsburgh-Corning sculptured glass module edition)
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Letterform Archive @letterformarchive.org · 23/08/2026
We do have some things that use lettering inspired by the logo. As for direct connections, we have yet to locate the original artwork. That said, we have a transit show coming up, and a direct contact at the MUNI archive, so maybe…
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Lots here for the design kids too! I wonder if @letterformarchive.org has anything related to this logo in their collection. (Because they should!)
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Visited False Idol in San Diego the other night and was very pleased! They really nailed both the decor and the drinks.
A dark and dramatically lit tiki bar.Two good looking tiki drinks.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Good old San Diego.
A very low-flying passenger jet.A very low-flying passenger jet.A sign for the Good Enough Cocktail Club.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
All kinds of problems with this article, but lots of comments focused on his obsession with “thought leader.” I don't really object to the (somewhat icky) term in the right context, but he repeats it over and over in the article. Seems unhealthy.
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Caryn Rose @carynrose.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
You can help! Do a web search on “poll challenger” or “poll watcher” (they are different roles) and your city. Or ask the ACLU in your area. I’ve done this. It’s a long day but it’s not hard.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Amazingly, now when I hear the song “You Only Live Twice,” I think about Mad Men before I think about James Bond.
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Christopher Slye @slye.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Just ran across an old Comcast bill from 2013. The monthly cost of “XFINITY TV” was $26.43 — after taxes and fees.
Part of a Comcast billing statement showing a total amount due of $26.43, and “Thank you for being a valued Comcast customer!”
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