This Land We Live On
It’s still strange to me that my wife and I own this house and land that we live on. Partly because this, you know, the concept of owning land ( …
What Do I Do With All These Photos
I take a lot of pictures. Not too many, but probably more than the average person. Most of them come from a camera that isn’t attached to a phone. My …
Adventureson
After releasing music under my own name for almost a decade, I'm giving myself a band name. There's no reason for this other than I want to publish …
To The Hills
I grew up in Maine and was fortunate enough to have parents who taught me and my sister how to ski at a very young age (2!). We lived about 45 …
The Weird Year, In Pictures
2020 is over and I'm not even close to "recovered." I admit that the year went easy on my family. I am grateful. We're almost four weeks into 2021 …
Dog Love
Don't worry, everything is fine with our pup Yoshi, this isn't a dog memorial note! In fact, I'm publishing this a week ahead of the third …
Kid A In Its Right Place
You didn't come here for a hot take on a 20 year old album but that's what this is. Yesterday I saw a tweet, and it made me anxious. Because I'm …
DaFont Food Court
Once a month I'll inevitably get an email from Paypal saying that "a nice dafont visitor" threw a couple bucks my way. Almost always $5. It's awesome …
Everything Is Awful, But New!
Well, RBG died tonight and America is literally on fire. Metaphorically too, but not in a rad way. So, perfect timing for me to rebuild this blog …
Sono
I've been working on revisions to seven ETC typefaces for almost eight months now. Before that, I had high hopes for a little project called Public …
Twenty Fifty-Two
I haven’t mentioned this on my website but on January 1st I began a 52 week long project. The goal? Record one song every seven days. All year. It …
Vast
What better way to start a quarantine/lockdown than with semi-ominous instrumental music, right? These six ambient tracks span three years of …
Best Tech I've Ever Owned
I didn’t think I’d be writing a “love letter” to a certain device today, but here I am. The last time I did this was about my favorite ebook reader, …
State Fair in Photos, 2019
It's been five years since I blogged photos from the New York State Fair, and you know what? We still hit the same spots and eat the same food. Fewer …
Open Source Sunday
I'm writing this on a Monday, but the title comes from the fact that I spent many hours yesterday finalizing on improvements made to League Mono and …
New Year, Old Cameras
This blog post started as a silly note on my phone. Less than a note really, just a list of every digital camera I've owned and used and loved and …
Farewell to Flickr
I just finished downloading all of my content from Flickr. It amounts to 21 ZIP files that Flickr prepared when I requested my archive, totaling …
Making a Variable Font in Glyphs
This is a quick (relatively, it's 18 minutes long) video tutorial on converting an existing single style font to a multiple master/variable …
Green Haystack
I make the drive from Upstate New York to Maine and back at least once a year. I've been doing that since 2000, believe it or not, as my …
Variable Monospace
For the past few months I have been working on converting my typeface League Mono from eight weights (up from 5 when it launched) to a variable …
Jamaica
Kingston to Negril and back, with a mountain adventure in between. March-April, 2018. Allison rented a car for us that I had the pleasure to drive …
Glyphs 2 Mini Tutorial
I recently made a quick (15 minute) video tutorial on introductory letter making in Glyphs Mini 2 . I think it is an improvement over my previous …
2017 Runfograph
This is a follow up to last year's running infographic. I'll just let this thing do the talking for now, and get down to some of the details after. …
Found Free Fonts
The world has more free fonts than ever, at a higher quality than I can handle (in a good way). I'm not going to make this a regular Friday thing, …
Design Crawl Ithaca
It has never been a better time to be a graphic designer in Ithaca. I write this as someone who has made a living here doing just that since 2006. We …
Profit, Loss, and Personal Satisfaction
I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking about how I get by. Many of those years I was an employee with a salary. Some years were 100% …
Atlantic At Acadia
I packed a microphone for my annual trip to Maine. You can see it in the photo above, very small, in almost the exact center of the frame. Aside from …
Fixed Width Friends
I began work on League Mono  at the end of 2016, and had the bulk of it in a usable form in March of this year. Why? I had been looking through the …
Spectating the Dirty German
This isn't a race recap as much as it's my experience as a bystander, but here we go. The date: Saturday, May 13th. Location: Philly's Pennypack …
Create Upstate 2017
Create Upstate is a great design event that has lived in Syracuse, NY for the past three years. It was wonderful there, but this year the organizers …
My Nook, Still Nookin
I'm not the first person to write something like this and given how much I love my Nook, I probably won't be the last, either. So I'll keep this …
New O'Clock Refresh
In September of 2015 I quickly and quietly launched New O'Clock , a website that publishes and tweets an interesting, true fact every day at two …
Big Updates to Gluten
I still have a soft spot for Gluten, now more than ever. Literally. Figuratively. In food, especially, but I'm talking about my font. I've recently …
Hatcher at Wilburland
My friend Josh returned home to record his third album at Wilburland . He invited me to the studio to document some of the process. I showed up with …
Type on Type
I’m writing this on a bus to New York City. A last minute getaway with my wife. After admiring the winter scene that also distracts me when I’m …
Faux Poster Experiment
I’m going to try something new with upcoming typeface releases: overdramatic fake movie posters. So I set out to make a simple design and realized …
Upstate NY Font
I was late to join my local (Upstate NY) AIGA chapter, and even later to hop on the chapter’s Slack list. Deplorable, I know, but I tried to make up …
Runfograph
I ran a lot over the past 12 months. More than ever, which was a surprise to me. I didn't have a goal of running over 100 miles each month for a year …
Classic Sci-Fi Book Covers
I visit a used book store in Ithaca’s Commons at least once a week. It’s called Autumn Leaves and sits on the ground level above a record/cd store, …
Running, Revisisted
The Rio Summer Olympics kicks off tonight and even though I don’t often watch sports, hit the track, or the road if I can help it, I look forward to …
The Planetary Society
The Planetary Society (a non-profit with thousands of dues-paying members) needed a few different print pieces created. An advocacy pamphlet, the …
Laser Cut Birdfeeder
In the fall of 2015 I created a birdfeeder using a single sheet of 24″ x 12″ birch plywood. I designed the three dimensional object in two dimensions …
We Love Testing
Yesterday after my son (age 10 at this posting) and I finished up some collaborative Portal 2 levels he went up to his room. He came down about 10 …
Loomings
A few years ago I had an idea to create ambient music from classic literature. The concept was simple: choose a piece of writing, remove every bit of …
Hardcovers
As I always say, if you want one of your fonts on a book cover, you’ve got to do it yourself. Okay I don’t say that, and honestly I’ve seen my stuff …
Run Club
A simple thought popped into my brain during a run in the rainy woods today: replace the word “fight” in key quotes from the movie Fight Club with …
Strength In Numbers
If only everyone had paid 50¢ per download It feels like not too long ago I wrote a similar blog post about hitting 1,000,000 free font downloads. A …
Two Lists
Things I'm Over India Pale Ales Higher education Apps “Entrepreneurs” Google Chrome Coffee that costs more than $2 Reddit Road races Seeing social …
Booze vs Sleep
This isn’t science, it’s personal. I don’t drink a lot. That is to say, when I enjoy a grown-up beverage, I do so in moderation. There are three …
XXXpansion Time
In a flurry of awesomeness and dollars flying everywhere, the first expansion deck for Assumptions is here. After finding, hiring, loving Louie Chin …
Illustrator Lauren Baker
I’ve never met Lauren Baker But back in February she emailed in response to my tweet looking for character illustrators for an upcoming project. In …
Seinfeld Nostalgia
I got sucked into a bit of a 90s black hole when /r/typography shared a link to screenshots of every title shot from the show Seinfeld …
Meet Louie
Sometimes all it takes to find great talent is a tweet asking for exactly that. Looking for the first expansion pack artist led me to Louie Chin, a …
Adjacent
When my friends at Adjacent asked me to take a few photos of their freshly updated space, I was happy to say "absolutely" and wise enough to bring …
Grayscreens (phone wallpaper)
I used to love bright, busy, vibrant wallpaper/background on my phone. They were fun but made the locked view/home screen busy, especially at night, …
TRVOCM Remixes
In 2012 I put out an instrumental album called The Return Voyage of Christopher Mackenzie (TRVOCM). The music is kind of wacky, but it is exactly …
Puerto Rico
Vieques and El Yunque in the middle of winter. Sounds ideal. I need to make this a habit every January. The camera I brought with me? Olympus OM-D …
Jellyfish And Friends
Jonah and I have been going to the Maritime Aquarium of Norwalk ever since my sister moved to that area over five years ago. My favorite room/exhibit …
Ithaca Hackathon
There was a lot going on in town yesterday, but I was able to stop by Singlebrook's latest hackathon (hosted at their place, sponsored by many other …
Homemade Hoodie
My kid busted out a brand new hoodie recently. Not one he bought but one that he designed! He is still slightly obsessed with frogs, which I think is …
Laser Type
A few days ago I saw this and got really excited: #twithaca this friday, come make paper creations on the laser cutter @IthacaGen …
Micro Macros
A lot of times I try to zoom out, or step back from something, to gain perspective. In this case I got in a close as I could. Closer than possible …
Change
My kid is getting bigger, smarter, faster, older. Summer is gone. Even our schedule is completely opposite what it has been for the past 5 years. Our …
Southpaw Revisited
I've used Southpaw quite a bit since Allison and I brought it to life earlier this year. Almost every day, at the Beer co. actually. In fact, it is …
The Great New York State Fair - 2014
The fairgrounds are in Syracuse, just over an hour away from our home. It hosts the Great New York State Fair, an annual celebration of epic …
From A Backyard On A Hill
We've left Ithaca, barely, but it feels like a wonderful new world. Actually, we’ve been out of “the city” for almost two months now, but that time …
Chunk Five Print
It isn’t new but it is hugely popular, and I’m using it these days in place of Rockwell Extra Bold (which is lovely, but not Chunk). I’ve also been …
Pixel County Classics
That’s right, I made these three pixel fonts in 2007. Flash was a big thing that I seemed to spend a bit of time with, and tiny text was huge (lol). …
White Hike
Had it been a clear day this view 👇would have included Mount Washington and the beast we hiked on the exact same day last year, Mount Madison. But …
Flaming Lips, Round 2
For the second time in my life I was treated to a Lips experience that stimulated every sense and also left me more inspired than I could have …
Million Milestone
Last week I received an email from someone asking about a specific usage and style stuff for one of my fonts blah blah blah. I linked them to the …
This Is Giant
An Adirondack High Peak Adventure I packed light, aside from the dog, and pitched a tent near the trail as the sun went down. Thunder and lightning …
Cloud Share
So when I do manage to get off the ground I find myself amazed at the experience. Luckily I’ve been able to share the past few trips with my son (who …
Postcard from 2013
It’s rare for me to write about concert experiences. Over the past few years I’ve enjoyed MIA, Flaming Lips, Phoenix, and Fiona Apple (among others), …
Piction iPhone App
One day at AWP I took a few hours to conceptualize and design a new kind of text overlay app. I started with the concept, a simple interface, and …
Quick NYC Trip
My sister has lived within an hour of New York City for a few years now. I'm not a city guy, but I can certainly love it for brief periods. How …
Day Trip Thorough Fracked Land
We went to find scarred landscape. I needed to see the environmental catastrophe that everyone around here has been talking about, trying to prevent. …
Zebes - Metroid Song
Metroid has been on my mind lately. It started when my kiddo obtained Nintendo Land / WiiU and found the Metroid level, which begins with the …
Madison in Winter
My friend Keith lives in a pretty sweet spot in New Hampshire. So the day after Christmas, while we were all in the same area, my life long friends …
Photo Friend Adam Baker
Last month Adam Baker had a very impressive photo show in town. Having only seen his work as large as my browser window would allow I was blown away …
Love for “A Book of Beards”
Seriously. Justin James Muir takes a good photo. When he sent me a few sample portraits for his beard book, titled A Book of Beards, my (bearded) jaw …
Mount Marcy
“Also known by the Algonquin name Tahawus, meaning Cloud-Splitter” I'm not really hiking all 46 Adirondack high peaks and it seems like cheating a …
Ithaca Festival Parade
Each year at the end of May all of Ithaca seems to come out for the Ithaca Festival parade! Sometimes it rains but this year we had beautiful …
Centralia PA
I’m standing on what used to be Route 61, the now closed off southern path into Centralia, Pennsylvania. Underneath the road, and much of the old …
The Return Voyage of Christopher Mackenzie
I recently released an instrumental album that tells the story of a spaceman (whose ancestors originated on Earth) returning home. I, for better or …
Instrumental Version of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”
I posted this on Vimeo . I’ve been holding on to it for too long and putting off making the video, but here it is. This is in my opinion Radiohead’s …