Do it your way!

Time to bring a new way to share process and life with the community

Hi everyone,

First of all, I wish you all the best for 2023. Ma mantra for this year is “Do it your way”. It could also be “Your way is the way”. I really believe we all need to follow our own path and not follow one that trends or social medias would like us to follow. I think this is important for our sanity and mental health.

In 2022, I launched a personal podcast in french. The idea was that I needed to share many things about my journey into design. I needed a place to share easily my thoughts and feelings. And these thoughts and feelings appear generally when I am outside, in the mountains or the forest. So I decided to record vocals when I am out there and publish them. Directly from my iPhone.

To do that, I use the Anchor app. And it is totally great. I don’t have any fancy microphone, I don’t spend hours mixing or fixing the audio. I don’t spend time preparing the content. No. I just go out and I record. I do it my way and I love it.

People seem to like it too. I received several messages of people telling me they liked the content. They feel like I was talking about their own struggles, their own life. Other tell me they like the format, that they feel outside, walking with me in the forest. Yes, I did it my way and I think this is the best way. I don’t feel stress, I don’t feel pressure about doing it.

Let’s build a community here!

And today I would like to do the same here. Do it my way. And my way would be to send you a weekly update. Send you news, inspiration but also more personal thoughts, like I do on my podcast. I would like to share with you how I feel about being a freelance designer, how I feel about selling my own products, doing my fonts and lettering. But also how I feel about my creative life and my mental health that goes with it. This is the way I would like to do it and that is the way I am going to do it.

And I want to do it here with you. First because you signed up to have news from me and my work. And I believe it is different from following me on social medias. Talking about social medias, I don’t trust them anymore. I have 37k followers on Instagram, and max 3k see my new posts. So I want to keep the contact differently, and I will do it here.

So from today, you will receive a weekly email from me. As I said above, there will be news, new products, inspiration, thoughts, mental health and more. I will try to share my journey so it can be useful for your own journey. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you can help on my own journey. We will see. But I am sure we can have great discussions. Here in the comments or by replying to the email and start chatting together.

Become part of the team

And I will go a bit further. This publication (because I feel it is not a newsletter only anymore) is going to be reader supported. It means that from today you can support the Typochondriac newsletter and my work by becoming a paid subscriber. Being a paid subscriber means giving $5/month to help me continue sharing many insights and inspiration with you but it gives you also access to my work in progress. Each paid subscriber will get access to my WIP fonts. It means that you will receive an email each time I work on a new font, or when I update an existing one. And I will give you the file of the font too.

For example, I started a new font called (for now) Rancheros (see above). I designed it on Fontself for the iPad. This is just a sketched font for now. But still a font file I can play with. You will be able to play with it too because I will send you every update of every font I work on. Sometimes, It will be sketched on Fontself, sometimes it will be just some lowercase or uppercase characters, but you will come with me on the way to create a font, and in my emails I will detail each step I take, each detail I work on and where I have fun or where I struggle. Interesting no? And last but not least, you will be able to use my WIP fonts on your personal projects and probably get the final version for a ridiculous price but I did not think about it yet ^^

Also, If you are a paid subscriber, I plan other benefits. I have several ideas like sending you some fun stuff/goodies by mail, once in a while. Or giving you feedback on your projects. But first things first, I will start by taking you on my type design journey, and see in a few months what I can add to it.

But overall, that paid subscription is really to support my work and that publication. And I have 5 to 8 fonts in the making right now so I will have enough content and pains to share for some time :D

What do you think of this? I spent a lot of time on Instagram between 2018 and 2022. And I loved it. But the situation got too complicated and I really want to keep contact with you guys. So I hope you will follow me on this new path.

Talk to you next week, friday afternoon, with probably a new product coming out! And if you have any question, idea, or advice, don’t hesitate to reply to this email or leave a comment.

Take care,

Francis