Why I started tiptoptypetips

Why typography? Why a newsletter? Why now?

In my first year of college, I went through a year of foundational design education before picking a specialised course like Graphic design. During this year, when everything I did was new and mind-opening, I remember one particular assignment — pretty simple — 4 frames to show the evolution of any object and the 5th frame for us to imagine its future.

During the time, I came across this video. Till date, I have no clue who directed me to it or where I found it. God bless the old Youtube algorithm. Also at the time, a few of my graphic design seniors had put up a little display, one with delicious lettering and typography galore!

Super-old photograph of my display. At the time, I was so proud of how I had painstakingly constructed each of these ~perfect~ A’s. 🙄

So, remember how I was given the freedom to pick ANY object in the world? But as you know, decisions are an illusion (a la Bandersnatch, determinism etc.) and as scripted as it may seem now, my younger self made the artsy-fartsy choice of picking: Serif and Sans-serif typography.

I had found this thing that was, in my mind, the perfect balance between something that was mathematical or logical and simply beautiful. Typography served as the gateway drug to my first and current love *insert drug-related analogy*, graphic design.

Over the years, while I spent my leisure hours hoarding typefaces and watching Helvetica documentaries, my friends and colleagues discovered an unusual skill of mine to identify typefaces. I never paid too much attention to this ability because I did it as a means to hoard more. 🙃
I soon became like a human Fontface Ninja with people now starting to ask and take my advice on their font choices, ppts and documents. Had I become an authority on typography? 👀

So finally, in the summer of 2018, almost as a joke but also because I finally had some time to work on all my silly ideas — I sent out the first unofficial issue of tiptoptypetips.

The unofficial tttt Issue #1

It was a single-page PDF newsletter in the form of an email attachment that I sent (with or without prior consent) to 10 of my most non-judgemental friends, including my sister.

And if you know me at all, I’m what we commonly refer to as extrawh, so I had the identity and ‘look’ of tttt well before I ever knew what to do with it. The general feedback was that the articles and items needed to be more actionable and that the newsletter was too heavy with content.

Next thing I know, I was sharing this with my good friend and knower-of-things-I-don’t — Abhinav Chhikara, and then spent the next few days/weeks (time is a construct) learning the ropes of Buttondown: to run my newsletter and manage my email list; Webflow: to design a delicious landing page through which folks could sign-up; and MJML: to code my newsletters.

I sent out the first official newsletter in October 2018 — this new version and the issues that followed were meant to be byte-sized and palatable for both non-designers and design nerds. Just 3 an issue, delivering recommendations, resources and articles I’ve curated and collected in a light-hearted read every week.

Type specimens I create every week with words, lyrics or thoughts that best showcase the nuances of the letters and its design.

Now, 13 issues of tttt later, we’re over 800 subscribers! I’ve been on a bit of hiatus to work on phase 2 of tiptoptypetips. More on that in the next blog post!

Thanks again for subscribing to tttt and supporting my passion projects. And if you have no idea what I’ve been going on about and want in, sign up here!

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