Everything Speaks

You signed up for a different newsletter. The old version was a placeholder. This is the real thing.

Every other week, you'll get an issue of Everything Speaks. The name comes from a thing my professors used to say in critique: every choice on the page is talking, whether you meant it to or not. The serif you picked has a personality. So does the gutter you skipped. So does the photograph you cropped too tight.

I've been thinking about that line for twenty years. It applies to design, and it applies to almost everything else, which is why this letter is going to range a bit.

Here's the rough shape. Issues will land every other Friday morning.

An opener. A short, personal piece of writing, often not about design directly, written to be sensory rather than abstract. It's something to read with coffee, not skim while standing at a kitchen counter.

This Week. A look at what I'm working on. I stay vague when the work is under wraps and specific when it isn't.

A Rule of Being a Designer. One per issue, pulled from a growing list. Some of them are absurd and some are dead serious. They're numbered, but the numbers aren't in order, so you might get Rule 13 one week and Rule 3,859 the next.

On This Day in Design History. Each issue takes one date and one thing that happened on it, and explains why it still matters: the work I keep returning to in my head, dragged into the present.

A Designer You Should Know. One person each issue, with an image, a name, a handle, and three sentences about them. Some are living and some aren't. Some are famous and some you've never heard of.

Sites You Should See. Three to five links, with no essay attached. Just the thing itself.

The Studio. A note on new work at johnhowrey.com whenever there is some.

Designer Provocation. A small prompt, something you could actually do tonight before bed, usually with just pen and paper.

Useful Music. Three to five tracks pulled from what I've actually been listening to.

Broadway Oracle. I pull a card and give it a reading. You can submit your own questions; the inbox is open.

Fade Out. Every issue closes on a single frame from a film I love, pulled at random.

That's eleven sections, which is a lot, but they're each short. The whole letter should take eight to ten minutes to read.

The first real issue lands two weeks from today. If any of this sounds wrong for you, the unsubscribe link is in the footer of every email and works in one click. No hard feelings.

If it sounds right, see you on the other side of two weeks.

J.