Earlier this year, we prepared a guide for our Home Exchange guests that, among other things, points them to shops and restaurants in the area that we like. 

One recommendation is Bookmark, and when my friend Valerie was reading the guide this morning, she reminded me that I need to update the store’s address, as it has moved around the corner.

When I looked the new address up, and found that it was 111 Kent Street, my typographic brain went into creative mode. 

This afternoon I went over to the print shop, and tried my best to translate what was in my imagination into type. 

Here’s what I came up with:

I went in daunted by the task of angling the “ones” to resemble a falling stack of books, thinking I would need some specialized typographic furniture to pull this off, but I was able to do it through creative use of rectangles.

The bookmarks that resulted, printed in yellow on white card, look like this:

This was absolutely, positively not an original idea: my mother worked for many years as a librarian for Wentworth Libraries, the rural library system serving communities around Hamilton, Ontario that has since been amalgamated into the Hamilton Public Library. 

The library system’s logo was a brilliant riff on the same theme, a stylized capital W (for Wentworth) formed from books:

I love that mug: it reminds me of the tiny Carlisle Public Library, at the time located in the back of the Community Hall, where I spent so many hours as a kid (see also).

Once they dry I’ll drop the Bookmark bookmarks round 111 as a gift for the hardworking staff who just moved a bookstore.

My education as a letterpress printer was helped greatly by printing coffee bags for ROW142, the coffee shop up the street from the print shop. Our arrangement was simple: I printed the bags, they plied me with great  coffee.

There is no greater printing education than figuring out all the fiddly bits of printing a complicated coffee bag with multiple thicknesses. And then figuring out how to do that reliably over and over. I loved it. And I learned so much.

When ROW142 was about to give way to what is now Receiver Coffee, moving just up the street, I memorialized the move in a special limited edition coffee bag. 

Receiver posted this lovely tribute to that bag, and the move that begat it, on Facebook earlier this week:

You may have noticed a new piece of art hanging behind our counter on Victoria Row:

“WALK THIRTY NINE STEPS.”
Peter Rukavina, 2014

At first glance, it might look like just a framed coffee bag. For us, and perhaps for some of you, it’s much more than that. This piece was part of a very limited run of hand-pressed bags created by local artist and printmaker Peter Rukavina in late May and early June of 2014.

Peter had been designing and printing bags for us back in the PRE-ceiver days. So when we made the move down the street to open our very first Receiver Coffee location on Victoria Row, he marked the occasion with this thoughtful, conceptual piece.

The phrase “WALK THIRTY NINE STEPS” isn’t just a literal nod to the short distance we moved—it’s a subtle metaphor for progress, belief, and the small but meaningful steps it takes to turn an idea into something real. It reflects both our physical journey and the emotional one: the leap of faith it took to open our doors, and the creative energy that continues to drive us.

To our team, this piece is a daily reminder of where we started, what we believed in, and how far a bit of passion and persistence can go. And while it may have originated as functional design, we think it stands on its own as a quiet, beautiful work of art.

We hope it speaks to you as much as it does to us. Sometimes, the simplest works carry the greatest meaning.

Back at you, coffee friends: we were there together, at the beginning of our respective crafts, and we’ve both come a long way. Thank you for the tip of the hat.

This is a story about how I designed and printed a postcard that illustrates typographic ligatures. I will mail you one.

Lisa and I were browsing the printmaking section of the Mount Allision University Library in Sackville a few months ago, and I came across a reproduction of Ligatures, by British artist Stephen Hoare:

Ligatures in typography are when two letters are combined into a single character so as to improve spacing. 

One frequent candidate for “ligaturing” is the lower-case f. For example, here’s the word “wifi,” in Futura Bold, on the left without a ligature, and on the right with “fi” as a ligature:

Longtime readers will know that I love ligatures: they are the Kaliningrad of typography, one I first became enamoured of in 2009 when I came across the book Typologia by Goudy in a Copenhagen library. I returned to the book in 2015, when I wrote about the discretionary ligatures in Goudy’s University of California Old Style.

Seeing Stephen Hoare’s work prompted me to want to take my own ligatures out for a ride: I acquired a font of Futura Bold from Letterpress Things in 2015, complete with ligatures for ff, fl, ft, and fi. I set about making a postcard that both used them and illustrated their function.

This was my first typesetting and printing job since I broke my elbow; until this week I wasn’t certain I could lift the chase into the press; turns out that I’ve regained enough strength and range of motion to do just that.

The design I settled on shows the non-ligatured version of each letter combination, their combination into ligatures, and words that include the ligatures:

Mail Me a Postcard

I’ll happily pop a postcard in the mail to any reader who would like one: just email me your postal mailing address, and I’ll send you one “naked” as a bona fide postcard.

I have largely been away from creative work for the last 3 months, as my broken elbow made working with my hands variously impossible, difficult, or uncomfortable. But I’m building range and strength, and so I went to the studio today for a quick project, just to dip my toes in creative waters.

I took a print experiment by Lisa and her friend Tessa from the discard pile and bound it into a vertical notebook:

I discovered that bookbinding—cutting, folding, sewing—takes more strength than I imagined. I did it, but it took my right arm to its current limits.

The bookbinding was a little rough around the edges, but, boy oh boy, was it good to be back.

City of Charlottetown Tree #9301, the sugar maple in front of our house, is nine years old this year. And, this autumn season, it is in fine form:

For comparison, here’s the tree on the day it was planted, in June 2016:

Charlottetown’s own Nancy White released her album Stickers on Fruit in 2002. From the title track:

Stickers on the berries, the red and the blue
And of course they put stickers on the vegetables too
Well call me thick and call me lazy
But dealing with the stickers has made me crazy

Stickers on fruit
Stickers on fruit!
God, I hate those stickers on fruit!
Take me away to the institute
Where I won’t have to deal with stickers on fruit!

I bought some oranges at Sobeys the other day; sure enough, every orange had a 4012 sticker on it, a number I had to type into the self-checkout machine when I checked out.

I wondered, unpacking the oranges, who assigns these numbers? Is it Jeff Jenkins? Sobeys? The government?

Who assigns these numbers is the International Federation for Produce Standards:

IFPS is composed of national produce associations from around the globe. The long-term objective of the federation is to improve the supply chain efficiency of the fresh produce industry through developing, implementing and managing harmonised international standards.

In the IFPS system, number 4012 is the record number for large navel oranges (4013 is the code for small navel oranges, 3107 is the code for medium ones).

From the IFPS User Guide (a fascinating read if you like reading about standards and labelling schemes):

What is a Price Look-Up (PLU) code?

IFPS PLU codes are 4 or 5 digit numbers which have been used by supermarkets since 1990 to make check-out and inventory control easier, faster, and more accurate. They ensure that the correct price is paid by consumers by removing the need for cashiers to identify the product; e.g., whether or not it is conventionally or organically grown. They are primarily assigned to identify individual bulk fresh produce (and related items such as nuts and herbs) and will appear on a small sticker applied to the individual piece of fresh produce. The IFPS PLU number identifies produce items based upon various attributes which can include the commodity, the variety, the growing methodology (e.g. organic) and the size group.

The 4-digit IFPS PLU codes for produce are assigned randomly within a series of numbers within the 3000 and 4000 series. The 4-digit codes are for conventionally grown produce. The prefix of ‘9’ would be placed in front of the 4-digit conventionally grown code for organic produce. In the future, the IFPS will begin assigning IFPS PLU codes utilizing the 83000 and 84000 series; however, unlike the “9”, the leading digit “8” will have no significance.

The Canadian member of the IFPS is the Canadian Produce Marketing Association.

PLU Finder is a nice little website that wraps some helpful consumer information around each PLU code. For large navel oranges, for example:

Fish tacos are $6 at Fin Folk Food in Tracadie every Tuesday. 

They are very good.

And very popular; here’s the parking lot at supper time yesterday:

Not only are the tacos very good, but the view is even better:

Lord knows I’ve had my disagreements with Mr. Banks, the proprietor, over the years. But it’s hard to argue with what he’s created here.

Justin Vernon and Jim-E Stack dig in deep on the Bon Iver album SABLE fABLE for BBC6. It’s a masterclass in modern music producing.

Sometimes blogging feels like a solo act.

Sometimes it feels like you’re in a band.

I now have an owner’s manual for a part of my body.

I made an access request for the surgical notes from my radial head replacement operation in August. It was from these notes that I learned what had been installed in my elbow:

On the back table, we assembled the Wright Medical Evolve 24 mm standard head and the 7.5 mm standard neck. 

Wright Medical was founded in 1950:

Started in 1950 by orthopaedic salesman and innovator Frank O. Wright, our first product was an “all-rubber walking heel” for leg casts – an original conception of the founder. From there, the product offering was quickly expanded to include orthopaedic implants and instrumentation as well as soft goods, like arm slings and splints.

By the time of Frank Wright’s death in 1975, orthopaedic implants and instrumentation had been firmly established as the foundation of the business. Within a few short years, our soft goods lines slowly disappeared and we were ready to forge ahead as a dedicated provider of orthopaedic surgical solutions.

After Wright died, the company was acquired by Dow Corning in 1977; it went through a series of ownership changes over the decades until its acquisition by Stryker in 2020.

You may recognize the name “Stryker” from the adjustable beds in hospitals, although that’s but a slice of its business, a business that includes pretty well everything medical (Catherine died in a Stryker bed, so it’s a brand name seared into my brain).

The Wright Medical Evolve that was installed in my right arm has an installation manual for surgeons, something I like to think of as an “owner’s manual” for this new part of my body:

The Evolve Radial Head prosthesis was designed to reduce abnormal kinematics and therefore problems with articular wear and pain and utilizes a spacer concept with a smooth stem. The smooth stem can move slightly in the proximal radius so that the radial head tracks with the articular surfaces, reducing abnormal kinematics and therefore problems with articular wear and pain.

The manual has a chart of the sizes of radial head available; I’ve highlighted mine:

I wear (embed?) a mid-range head and stem.

There is a very detailed description for surgeons on how to install the new head and stem, filled with language like:

Grasp the trial stem with the trial stem handle so that the handle sits below the trial head. Insert the trial stem into the medullary canal. Screw the trial head onto the trial head handle. Holding the trial head handle in line with the trial stem handle, slide the trial head over the trial stem platform.

That page has a diagram that illustrates the procedure:

It’s weird to consider that was all being done to my elbow while I was under anaesthetic.

The most bracing parts of the owner’s manual come at the introduction:

• The patient should be advised that the device cannot and does not replicate a normal healthy bone, that the device can break or become damaged as a result of strenuous activity or trauma and that the device has a finite expected service life.
• Removal or revision of the device may be required sometime in the future.

Time will tell whether I’ll wear this radial head out, or whether it will get me through the rest of my life.