[Photo walk] Walking around the city and suburbs, part 3

Some more black and white photos from when I’ve been travelling around various parts of the city.

All this month I’ve been using Jonas Schäfer’s darktable styles that mimic Fujifilm’s simulations (in this case, ACROS) to convert the camera-raw images to greyscale before I edit and publish them. This time, however, I used Darktable’s ‘monochrome’ module to do the greyscale conversion and – you know what? – I think it works quite well :)

When the boat is taller than the house

Black and white photo of a tall boat – a mini yacht or cabin cruiser – parked in the front yard of a single-storey house. The boat is on its trailer and is covered with a large tarpaulin. The cabin of the boat has two levels, and so the boat is actually taller than the house that it is parked next to.

Between the goal posts

Black and white photo of an Aussie Rules football pitch for children that is attached to a primary school. The photo has been taken through a chain-link fence.

Give way to trams

Black and white photo looking down at a pedestrian crossing across at a pair of tram tracks that run down the centre of a road. Printed on the asphalt in large, all-capital letters is the phrase, “give way to trams”. Captured in motion-blur in the top-left corner of the photo is a woman carrying a tote bag who is walking across these tram tracks.

Tram tracks on Collins Street in Docklands

Black and white photo taken along the length of a road that has tram tracks running down the centre. This road heads into the city centre and, because it is dark, streetlights, car headlamps, and windows in buildings are all illuminated.

Down the escalators at Southern Cross Station

Black and white photo of a large urban railway station with a dozen tracks terminating under a massive roof. The photo shows trains parked at or leaving from several platforms, with dozens of passengers waiting on these platforms for their trains.

Train at Southern Cross Station

Black and white photo of the front of a Metro-branded train stopped at a large underground railway station.

Mind the (relatively small) gap

Black and white photo of the open doors of a train that stopped at a railway platform. Text painted along the edge of the platform reads, in all-capital letters, “mind the gap”.

Parked outside the industrial showroom

Black and white photo of a car parked directly outside a large, industrial building. The building’s double-storey roller door is open and bright light is spilling out into the dark night, such that the car is almost a silhouette against the brightness.

Train zipping along at a railway crossing – 1

Black and white photo of the front of a train travelling along its tracks as it passes a railway crossing. The photographer has used a slow shutter speed on his camera, so while everything else in the frame looks normal, the train has motion blur.

Train zipping along at a railway crossing – 2

Black and white photo of the middle of a train travelling along its tracks as it passes a railway crossing. The photographer has used a slow shutter speed on his camera, so while everything else in the frame looks normal, the train has motion blur.

Train zipping along at a railway crossing – 3

Black and white photo of the end of a train travelling along its tracks as it passes a railway crossing. The photographer has used a slow shutter speed on his camera, so while everything else in the frame looks normal, the train has motion blur. Since the train only covers half of the frame, in the other half of the frame you can see a line of cars waiting at the railway crossing.

Nadia in black-and-white

I took a couple of photos of Nadia at the Cornish Arms rooftop bar. I’m still getting the hang of editing photos in black-and-white, but I think these ones came out okay.

Nadia at the Cornish Arms rooftop bar

Black and white photo of a middle-aged woman with long hair who is wearing sunglasses and a corduroy jacket over a knit top. The woman is sitting in a rooftop bar with the sun in her eyes, which is why she is also shading her eyes with her hand. She is smiling and talking to someone off camera.

Black and white photo of a middle-aged woman with long hair who is wearing sunglasses and a corduroy jacket over a knit top. The woman is sitting in a rooftop bar with the sun in her eyes, which is why she is also shading her eyes with her hand. She is smiling and talking to someone off camera.

[Photo walk] Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 14

I’ve been taking my camera with me when I got into the office, go shopping, go visit friends, or just go for a walk across the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

Here are some of the photos I’ve taken over the last couple of weeks. (I’m only shooting in black-and-white this July, fyi.)

Underneath a bus shelter, only somewhat protected from the downpour

Black and white photo taken from underneath a bus shelter on a street in an industrial area. It is raining heavily, even though the sun is still shining through a small gap in the clouds.

On Ventura bus #1619

Black and white photo taken from inside a city bus, looking out the front window. The only other person in the bus is the driver.

Tactile directional tile across a walking and cycling path

Black and white photo looking along the length of a walking and cycling path. Cutting across this path are tactile directional tiles that tell people with visual impairment that there is a bus stop or street crossing in the direction of the raised grooves of the tile. Running along the centre of the path are diverging white lines that guide cyclists around the electricity pole that has been erected in the middle of the path.

Tactile warning tiles just before the walking path crosses the road

Black and white photo looking straight down at a walking path onto which plastic tactile warning tiles have been installed. In the bottom of the photo you can see the photographer’s black jeans and white sneakers.

Reflections on a Mazda console

Black and white photo looking through the front passenger side window of a Mazda sedan. Reflected in the window glass is a brick wall and a garage door.

Nicely-spaced murder

Black and white photo of a murder of four crows silhouetted against the cloudy sky while they stand along the edge of a brick building.

High beams at dusk

Black and white photo taken at dusk of a walking path that runs alongside a road. There is traffic on the road, and one of the cars coming towards the photographer has its high beams switched on, which are outshining everything else around them.

Celebrating 20 years in Melbourne

This week marks twenty years since Nadia and I moved to Melbourne to pursue our Masters degrees.

Why Melbourne?

After we got married in Pakistan in 2004, Nadia and I wanted to go overseas to study. When deciding where to go, we picked three cities that were (a) great places to live and (b) had multiple universities that the two of us could apply to.

The cities we picked were:

We decided all this just as the southern-hemisphere university admissions cycle started and, as luck would have it, both of us applied to and got into the University of Melbourne. [1]

This was great because my older sister was living in Melbourne at the time and she had just completed her PhD from the University of Melbourne. Meaning not only did she know the city we’d be moving to, she knew the exact university we’d be going to as well.

With our university acceptances in hand, a guaranteed soft landing in a new country, and the full scholarship I was awarded for my MBA studies, we leapt at the chance to head down under.

So it was that on 12 July 2006, Nadia and I hopped on a one-way flight to a place almost 11,000 kilometers away and in a hemisphere that neither of us had been to before.

Scan of a Thai Airways paper ticket for Ameel Zia Khan, departing Islamabad at 11:10pm on 12 July 2004.

20 years on

We landed in Melbourne on Tuesday, 13 July 2006, and the very first place my sister and a family friend (who was also my sister’s housemate) took us to for lunch was A1 Bakery on Sydney Road in Brunswick.

It was fitting, then, that on 13 July 2026, Nadia and I went back to A1 for lunch to mark the occassion :)

Selfie of a man and woman sitting at a table in a large, warehouse-sized Lebanese bakery. The woman is holding a knife and is in the process of cutting the Lebanese pizzas that are lying on platters on the table between them.

Settling down

Nadia completed her MA and went on to do a PhD from UniMelb as well. I completed my MBA and went into the job market. Nadia did a couple of other things, but eventually made her way back to UniMelb, which is where she now teaches.

I don’t remember exactly when we decided that Melbourne was the place we were going to call home, but a big part of why we decided to stay was the people we met here along the way. Which is why we also marked our twenty years in this city with our friends and family at the Cornish Arms rooftop bar this weekend.

Photo of a rooftop bar on a sunny day, with space that's been set aside for a private function. A sign in front of this reserved area has the Cornish Arms logo and reads, “Nadia and Ameel 20 years in Melbourne, 1-4pm”.

Looking forward

What are our plans for the next twenty years? I have no idea, because Nadia and I plan our lives in four-year increments.

I mean that literally, by the way. Ever since Nadia’s PhD graduation in 2013, when our lives were finally disconnected from the degree-seeking schedule that universities impose on you, we’ve been making and documenting four-year life plans.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. We do have over 26 years left on our mortgage. So, if nothing else, in 2046 we’ll still be paying that off!

But my point is that twenty years is a long time so, instead of planning that far ahead, we’re just going to do what we can and roll with the punches when we can’t. That is life, and we’re looking forward to what the next twenty years in Melbourne will bring us.

[1] Yes, technically I got into Melbourne Business School which, back then, was only half-owned by the University of Melbourne. MBS is now wholly owned by UniMelb.

Crediting typefaces in books

Following on from my post about ‘Typefaces on book copyright pages, check out this recent Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) FAQ titled ‘Citation, Documentation of Sources’:

Q. Do typefaces or fonts used in a book or other document need to be credited? CMOS 4.106 makes me think they should, but maybe I misunderstood something.

Read the FAQ page for the full answer, but the tl;dr is that, no, in most cases font licences don’t require you to credit them in your publications.

Bright yellow cover page of a book titled The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition

Like I said in my earlier post, I do appreciate it when publishers share which typeface(s) they’ve used in their publications – like the University of Chicago Press folks do on the colophon page of the CMOS Online website.

Oh, and in case you don’t know, this website has a colophon page too :) You’ll find that in the footer.

Black-and-white in July

I haven’t done much photography in the last couple of months. I’ve been both busy and unwell, and it has rained a lot in Melbourne.

Now that I am going out more often and taking my camera with me when I do, I’ve decided to keep things interesting by developing a new photography skill. So during all of July I’ll shoot only in black-and-white.

I’ve configured my Fujifilm X-S10 camera to use the ACROS film simulation, which means the camera’s electronic viewfinder shows me everything in black-and-white. And when I import these photos in to darktable, I use Jonas Schäfer’s darktable styles that mimic Fujifilm’s simulations– specifically the ACROS one.

Here, then, is my first batch of black-and-white-only photos.

There’s roadworks happening in a nearby suburb and I wanted to see what photos I could take there, so Nadia and I walked around the area while I took some photos.

Nadia is ready to head out

Black-and-white photo of a woman standing in a hallway leading to the front door of a house. The woman is wearing a bulky waterproof coat and a baseball cap.

Cat in the driveway

Black-and-white photo of a cat standing next to some bushes and bins at the top of a driveway. The cat is looking over its shoulder at the photographer.

Hanging plant baskets on the front porch

Black-and-white photo of the front porch of a house with a tiled roof. Hanging from the edge of the roof are five alternating round and conical woven plant baskets with small plants in them.

Detour to the left

Wide-angle, black-and-white photo of a “detour” sign taken from close to the ground. The sign has been placed on the nature strip next to an intersection that has been closed off using tall wire-fence segments due to roadworks.

Twisted-metal rope

Black-and-white photo of a loop of twisted-metal rope leaning on a “road closed” sign in front of a roadworks site.

End of the detour

Wide-angle, black-and-white photo of a “detour” sign taken from close to the ground. The sign has been placed on the nature strip next to a road running through a residential neighbourhood.

Creative sign from Claudio+Marwan Residential

Black-and-white photo of a large real estate sign erected in front of a house. The sign is almost completely white with plain black, all-capital text on it. This text reads, “Just another sign (to contact us)”. Below this is a QR code and the C+M logo of Claudio+Marwan Residential real estate agents.

Tiny, wonky lighthouse in the garden

Black-and-white photo of a pebbled area at the end of a residential garden. This photo has been taken through the bars of a wrought iron fence. A few cacti and other plants are growing in this area and a couple of calf-high metallic objects have been placed along its edge. The object in the centre of the photo depicts a slightly wonky lighthouse.

Your speed is 41km/h

Black-and-white photo of an LED sign affixed to a pole along a residential street. This sign shows the speed of cars driving along this road. Text painted at the top of this sign reads, “your speed”. At the time of this photo the variable, LED-based part of this sign reads, “41”, meaning the approaching car is driving at 41 kilometres per hour.

You are under the speed limit

Black-and-white photo of an LED sign affixed to a pole along a residential street. This sign shows the speed of cars driving along this road. Text painted at the top of this sign reads, “your speed”. At the time of this photo the variable, LED-based part of this sign shows a smiley face icon, meaning the approaching car is driving under the speed limit.

Telephone and internet wires running underground

Black-and-white photo looking straight down at lines and text that have been spray-painted onto the pavement. These lines indicate where telephone and internet wires are running underground. At the very bottom of the photo frame you can see the photographer's sneakers and jeans.

No roadworks on Sunday afternoon

Black-and-white photo of a fenced-off area of a residential street. Parked within this fenced-off area is an excavator, and there are several precast concrete pipe segments lying along one side of the street.

I’m really enjoying the process of learning this new skill! I’m having to look at things in a different way and adjust my composition to accommodate the lack of colour in my photos. It is challenging and a whole lot of fun :)

Melbourne in winter

There’s always something fun happening in Melbourne. This winter we have a Ferris Wheel at Southbank.

I love Melbourne in winter

Photo taken at night through a rain-splashed window of a Ferris Wheel that’s on the other side of the river from the photographer. A circular sign in the middle of the wheel reads, “I love Melbourne” with a heart icon instead of the word “love”.

Outside Scienceworks

My niece is in town so I took her to see the Pride Month Stargayzing Show at the planetarium at Scienceworks. The show was really fun, and if you’ve never been to a planetarium before, I highly recommend a visit.

I got there a little early and managed to take a few photos outside.

Scienceworks museum in Melbourne

Photo of the front of the Scienceworks building taken on a partly overcast day.

Scienceworks museum members entry

Zoomed-in photo of the museum members entrance of the Scienceworks building. The photo has been taken through the branches of a tree.

1966 Ford Falcon XP outside Scienceworks

Side-on photo of a black muscle car parked on a street in front of a tall chain-link fence in a semi-industrial area.

Ford Falcon outside Scienceworks

Side-on, black-and-white photo of a black muscle car parked on a street in front of a tall chain-link fence in a semi-industrial area.

Bus stop at night

I walked by a bus stop on a night when I had my Fujifilm mirrorless camera with me. The advertisement space of the bus shelter was empty, making the wall look and act like a massive soft box light that illuminated the space around it – with only the yellow street light across the street providing some colour balance. Naturally, I stopped to take a few photos :)

Naked bus stop shelter at night

Black-and-white photo of a bus stop shelter at night. The illuminated wall of the shelter where an advertising poster is supposed to be installed is empty, which makes this wall look like a massive soft-box light.

Blank bus stop shelter

Photo of a bus stop shelter at night. The illuminated wall of the shelter where an advertising poster is supposed to be installed is empty, which makes this wall look like a massive soft-box light. There is motion blur on a car driving by the shelter.

No need to stop when there's no one there

Photo of a bus stop shelter at night. The illuminated wall of the shelter where an advertising poster is supposed to be installed is empty, which makes this wall look like a massive soft-box light. A bus that would otherwise stop here is driving past without slowing down which, in the photo, gives it a motion blur.

No one at the bus top

Black-and-white photo of a bus stop with a bench and a bus shelter. The photo is taken at night and the illuminated wall of the shelter where an advertising poster is supposed to be installed is empty. That makes this wall look like a massive soft-box light.

Naked bus stop shelter

Black-and-white photo of a bus stop shelter at night. The illuminated wall of the shelter where an advertising poster is supposed to be installed is empty, which makes this wall look like a massive soft-box light

Pie and paracetamol

Pie and paracetamol is how I’m making it through work today.

I’m not ill, just tired. It’s week four of the roughly six weeks it takes me to fully get over each bout of post-viral fatigue.

Happily, this time around I was 80% back to normal by week two! That’s fantastic compared to how debilitating this was last year.

Close-up photo of a slice of cherry pie and two paracetamol tablets lying in a take-away cardboard tray.

How lucky are we?

How lucky are we that some artists now proactively release multiple version of their songs.

Like Peter Gabriel who, since his 2023 album i/o, has been releasing “Bright-Side” and “Dark-Side” mixes of all his songs.

And Dua Lipa released regular and extended versions of Radical Optimism in 2024 – though the extended versions were on digital and streaming only.

There have always been multiple versions of songs, of course – album, radio, live, remix, 20th anniversary, etc – but releasing multiple studio versions from the get-go is a new and very cool development.

Album art for the Peter Gabriel song Been Undone

Also, I know Peter Gabriel’s “Been Undone” was released on 3 and 18 January 2026 – the Dark-Side and Bright-Side mixes, respectively – but I think this is going to be my song of the year.

Music album long list, 2026

I love music singles and mixtapes, but at heart I’m an album person. I love listening to entire LPs and EPs from start to finish, over and over again.

Screenshot from the YouTube Music smartphone app showing the badges received by this listening. The most recent badge is from 3 May 2026 and is titled, “Top Listener of U2”. Text below this reads, “You were in the top 0.25% of their audience of 15 million in April 2026”.

Here are the 36 albums I’ve listened to on repeat over the last five years or so, listed in alphabetical order by artist name.

I did listen to lots of other albums, of course. They didn’t make it to this list because I only liked a handful of songs from them.

Take Lady Gaga’s Mayhem (2025), for example. I listened to that from start to finish a few times and then I picked the songs I liked the most (seven of them, it turns out) and added them to my ‘Current’ playlist. But this wasn’t an album I listened to on repeat all the way through.

Same with albums from Aly & AJ, Cannons, The Chemical Brothers, Folk Bitch Trio, FKA Twigs, Kesha, Kita Alexander, London Grammar, Mammoth, Miya Folick, Moby, Neil Finn, Nine Inch Nails & Boyz Noize, Robyn, Rosa Damask, Sabrina Carpenter, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Taylor Swift, Xani, and Zoe Keating, to name a few.

What albums have you had on heavy rotation over the last few years? I’d love to know.

A few thoughts about Easter Lily

Some thoughts on U2’s latest EP, Easter Lily, which I still listen to all the way through several times a week, sometimes several times a day on my commute to work.

Album cover of the U2 EP titled 'Easter Lily'. The artistically glitchy cover depicts a lily (the flower) that is glowing because of the bright light shining on it. This is set against a yellow background on which the flower's shadow can be seen.

‘Song for Hal’

The Edge on lead vocals.

These lines as a reference to death:

Did you hear “forever”?
Was it playing soft and low?
It’s not a song you wanna hear
If you’re not ready to go

The comfort people find in religion, even though I’m not at all religious myself.

‘In a Life’

This song might be about “celebrating friendship”, but it’s about so much more than that.

Larry Mullen Jr’s drumming.

These lines, which are so relevant today:

And when we make the bed out of war
Deafen our children with its roar
Repeat, rewind, replay once more
Never unsee the sights they saw

The anthemic outro with The Edge, once again, on lead vocals.

‘Scars’

The way this song ends with, “You won’t know who I am / The next time we meet” and then transitions seamlessly into ‘Resurrection Song’.

Larry Mullen Jr’s drumming.

‘Resurrection Song’

Larry Mullen Jr’s infectious drum parts.

Adam Clayton’s driving bass parts.

The Edge’s shimmering, tinkling, shining guitar parts.

The emotion in Bono’s vocals, and how they’re raw and not overproduced.

The fantastic dynamics throughout the song structure.

(Yes, this is my favourite song on the album.)

‘Easter Parade’

A beautific, anthemic outro singing a Greek phrase from the Bible that translates to, “Lord have mercy”. I bet no one had that on their Bingo card!

‘COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)’

Who thought that in 2026 U2 would release a 6 minute, 48 second quiet, mostly-vocal song produced by Brian Eno that was “a lullaby for parents of children caught up in war”.

The question mark at the end of the song title.

Bono’s voice, equalised but otherwise raw and unprocessed; and with an occasional chorus effect applied.

“[The] girl of Guadalupe”?

The unexpected stinger/discordant chord at the end of the song/EP that has no musical or commercial reason to be there except that’s what the band/producer wanted (or wanted to leave in).

Thoughts about the whole EP

U2 when they’re being experimental, when they’re not trying to be commercial, when they’re singing about things that matter very deeply to them.

How this EP feels like a more mature version of U2 from their The Unforgettable Fire days.

Everyone has a chance to shine on this EP but, for my money, I think Larry Mullen Jr is the star of this album.

The EP title is a nod to Patti Smith’s 1878 album Easter, which I wouldn’t have otherwise sought out and listened to.

My favourite typeface pairings (2026)

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I posted my original list of favourite typeface pairings in 2023, so here’s an update.

A few things to note:

  • The list below covers only the typefaces I enjoy writing in the most, along the heading typefaces I usually pair them with.

  • Happily, the list of honourable mentions in each section covers most of the typefaces I enjoy reading in as well. I do occasionally use these typefaces for writing, but only when the need arises.

  • Within each section, typefaces are listed in alphabetical order.

  • Paid typefaces are flagged with “($)” after their name.

  • The first time I mention a typeface I’ve added a link to where you can download or purchase it, or just find out more about it.

In case you’re interested, I have a separate post about my favourite ebook typefaces and an ongoing series on cool type pairings I’ve found on the web.

For completeness’ sake, I should say that I don’t always pair typefaces. Sometimes it’s just best to use the same typefaces for headings and titles as well :)

Serifs

I do most of my writing in serif typefaces using LibreOffice.

Calluna

I almost always pair Calluna ($) with Calluna Sans ($). If I hadn’t purchased Calluna and Calluna Sans together, I’d probably pair Calluna with Whitney ($) for its elegance, Neue Montreal ($) for its neutrality, or Brother 1816 ($) for its geometric elegance.

Crimson Pro

I usually pair Crimson Pro with Work Sans since the two have a similar vibe or with Nebula Sans for a slightly more elegant vibe. Other good pairing options are Avenir Next ($) for its elegant geometric nature and Fact ($) for its squarish geometric nature (which provides a nice contrast to Crimson Pro).

Crimson Pro is a modern interpretation of Garamond. Nebula Sans is a version of Source Sans 3 that’s been adjusted to look like Whitney. Fact is a modern interpretation of Frutiger.

ETbb

I usually pair ETbb with Public Sans or Nimbus Sans, both of which are on the friendlier side of neutral. Other good pairing options are Brother 1816 ($) for is geometric elegance and Neue Montreal ($) for its slightly-friendly neutrality.

That said, when I’m using ETbb as a reading typeface, I almost always pair it with itself.

ETbb is a version of ET Book, Edward Tufte’s modern interpretation of Bembo. Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Nimbus Sans is a version of Helvetica that’s a little more like Univers, which I really like. Neue Montreal is a great, slightly friendlier alternative to Helvetica.

Goodchild

I almost always pair Goodchild ($) with Nicholas ($) since Nicholas is the “tight but not touching” headline version of Goodchild. Another good pairing option is Hint ($) since that adds a touch of neutral elegance.

Goodchild is a modern interpretation of Jenson.

Mercury

I almost always pair Mercury ($) with Whitney ($) or Whitney Narrow ($). Other good pairing options are Metropolis ($) for its neutrality and Calluna Sans ($) for its elegance. The Mercury + Whitney combo is my default in LibreOffice Writer.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Mercury and Whitney.

Source Serif 4

I almost always pair Source Serif 4 with Source Sans 3. Other good pairing options are Fira Sans to add a bit more character, Merriweather Sans to add a bit more elegance, and Public Sans to add a more classic, friendly vibe. The Source Serif 4 + Source Sans 3 combo is what I usually use when sending an editable document to someone (with fonts embedded).

Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic.

Stempel Garamond

I pair Stempel Garamond ($) with Rethink Sans since they have a similar vibe or with Nebula Sans for its solid elegance. Other good pairing options are Jost* for its geometric elegance and Cabin for its geometric friendliness. Stempel Garamond also works well with something neutral like Helvetica.

Stempel Garamond is a modern interpretation of Garamond. I’m not a big user of Garamond, but this version is my favourite. Rethink Sans is a fork of DM Sans, which itself is a fork of Poppins. Jost* is a modern interpretation of Futura. Cabin is a modern interpretation of Gill Sans.

TT Jenevers

If I’m not pairing TT Jenevers ($) with itself (usually its Extra Bold weight), I pair TT Jenevers with Cooper Hewitt for its classic, geometric vibe. Other good pairing options are Merriweather Sans which adds a bit of geometric elegance, Public Sans which adds a bit of friendliness, and Whitney ($) which adds a bit of friendly elegance.

Willy Caslon

I pair Willy Caslon ($) with Public Sans, since they both have the modernised-classic vibe. Other good pairing options are Neue Montreal ($) for its friendly neutrality, Neue Haas Unica ($) for its warm neutrality, and Trade Gothic Next ($) for its classic, friendly vibe.

Willy Caslon is a modern interpretation of Caslon. Public Sans is a modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Neue Montreal is a modern interpretation of Helvetica. Neue Haas Unica is modern interpretation of Unica, which was an amalgam of Univers and Helvetica. Trade Gothic Next is a version of News Gothic, which is the regular-weight version of the original Franklin Gothic.

Honourable mentions

These are the body text typefaces I use for writing only when the need arises, along with the typefaces I like to pair them with.

Finally, I should mention that, even though I don’t currently use these typefaces (they’re on my wish list), the Untitled Serif ($) + Untitled Sans ($) pairing is excellent.

Sans serifs

Calluna Sans

I almost always pair Calluna Sans ($) with Calluna ($). If I hadn’t purchased Calluna Sans and Calluna together, I’d probably pair Calluna with Mercury ($) or Heuristica for their authoritativeness or Gentium (probably Extra Bold) for its warmer vibe.

Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Fact

I usually pair Fact ($) with Bitter since the letterforms of both are based on rounded rectangles. Other good pairing options are Caladea for its friendliness, Faustina for its modern rounded-rectangular warmth, and Mercury ($) for its authoritativeness.

Fact is a modern interpretation of Frutiger.

General Sans

I usually pair General Sans with At Hauss ($) since they’re both quite similar (ie At Hauss could almost pass as the display version of General Sans). Other good pairing options are Jost* for its geometric sharpness, Charis for its modern friendliness, and Sentient for old-school its charm and warmth.

Jost* is a modern interpretation of Futura. At Hauss may be a paid typeface, but its non-commercial version costs only €9!

Hint

I usually pair Hint ($) with Emy Slab ($) since they’re both slightly elegant but otherwise solid typefaces. Other good pairing options are Editorial New ($) to add some modern style, Audela ($) to add a little chunkier solidity, and Calluna ($) to add some friendlier style.

Hint is my preferred alternative to Avenir.

Ideal Sans

I almost always pair Ideal Sans ($) with Sentinel ($) since they both have the same vibe and are from the same type foundry. Another good pairing option is Metropolis for its modern solidity.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Ideal Sans and Sentinel.

Nebula Sans

I usually pair Nebula Sans with Mercury ($) since they have a similar vibe or with Clab ($) if I want a slightly more solid vibe. Other good pairing options are Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance and Heuristica for its modern friendliness.

Nebula Sans is a version of Source Sans 3 that’s been adjusted to look like Whitney. Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Officer Sans

I pair Officer Sans (free) with itself or with Caladea for its friendliness.

You can get the basic version of Office Sans for free, but there is also a full Officer Sans family that you can purchase.

Public Sans

If I’m not pairing Public Sans with itself, I usually pair it with Sentient since they have a similar vibe (friendly, classic). Other good pairing options are Georgia (or Gelasio) for its retro charm, Roboto Slab for its solidity, and Heuristica for its modern friendliness.

Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Gelasio is an open source version of Georgia. Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Rig Sans

If I’m not pairing Rig Sans ($) with itself, I usually pair it with Sentient since the latter adds a bit of classic charm to the text. Other good pairing potions are Literata TT Subhead for its solid warmth, Clab ($) for its elegant authoritativeness, and Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance.

Rig Sans is the typeface I go to every time I’m tempted to use something like Verdana.

Source Sans 3

I almost always pair Source Sans 3 with Source Serif 4 since they’re part of the same family. Other good pairing options are Manuale for its rounded-rectangular sharpness, Roboto Slab for its solidity, and Charis for its modern friendliness.

Charis is an updated version of Charter.

Whitney

I almost always pair Whitney ($) with Mercury ($) since they have a similar vibe. Other good pairing options are Sentinel ($) for its old-school vibe, Metropolis for its solidity, and Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Whitney and Sentinel.

Honourable mentions

These are the body text typefaces I use for writing only when the need arises, along with the typefaces I like to pair them with.

Finally, as mentioned in the serif section above, even though I don’t currently use these typefaces (they’re on my wish list), the Untitled Sans ($) + Untitled Serif ($) pairing is excellent.

Monospace

I’m only including this section for completeness’ sake because, whenever I use a monospace typeface, I pair it with itself.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The monospace typefaces I use most often are JetBrains Mono, Berkeley Mono, and Cascadia Code. I will also occasionally use Drafting* Mono, At Textual, and Clack.

Concluding thoughts

Sorry for the long post – I had a lot to get through!

If you’ve made it all the way to the end, tell me what your favourite or go-to typeface pairings are.

Squarespace support Squarespace support

Ah yes. The folks at my website hosting provider Squarespace are reaching out to me via *checks notes* the contact form on my website.

😆

Last month it was Julia from the “Square Space Security Team”.

And this week we have “Collins” reaching out from the “Squarespace Security Team” so at least they got the name of the company right. “Collins” was even helpful enough to leave the quotation marks around his name. Good on you “Collins”.

Stand behind the yellow line

“Passengers on the platform are reminded to stand behind the yellow line until the train comes to a complete stop”

— Repeated pre-recorded announcement made over the public address sytem at all train stations in Melbourne.

I can imagine the discussion the pre-teen and their mother had on platform 10 at Southern Cross railway station just before I took this photo. That’s because, the second the mother looked away, the pre-teen quietly stretched one leg and tapped the forbidden side of the yellow line with their toe before quickly pulling their leg back 😛🙄

Photo of the train tracks and platform at a large suburban railway station, with a train visible on the platform across from the photographer. A “mind the gap” warning is written in yellow ink on the other side of the yellow safety line at the edge of the platform.

Easter Lily is *excellent*

If you’re a U2 fan but you’ve been less than whelmed by some of the band’s newer music (eg the “Songs of…” trilogy) you must check out their two new EPs.

Days or Ash is good, but Easter Lily is excellent. And both are a true return to form.

In fact, I think maybe 80% of the music I’ve listened to since Easter Lily was released on 2 April has been this EP played from start to finish!

Album cover of the U2 EP titled 'Easter Lily'. The artistically glitchy cover depicts a lily (the flower) that is glowing because of the bright light shining on it. This is set against a yellow background on which the flower's shadow can be seen.

[Photo walk] Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 13

I’m loving my new 27mm (full-frame equivalent) prime lens!

I took only a handful of photos with it on today’s short walk though. I was having more fun talking with Nadia that I was with taking photos :)

Suburban electricity pole

Photo looking up through a gap in a tree to a wooden electricity pole holding up multiple wires.

Statue in a garden

Photo taken through a wrought iron gate of a statue in a residential garden. The statue is of a woman in traditional European dress carrying a water jug.

Colourful windmill on a fence

Photo of a colourful, decorative windmill affixed to a residential fence with a sturdy wooden stick. The windmill has wide, rounded sails made out of multi-coloured, translucent plastic in shades of blue, pink, and purple.

We got solar panels!

In 2022 we bought a house in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and this year (2026) we finally had enough money saved up to get solar panels installed on our roof.

Photo looking up from the ground floor at the roof of a double-storey house. The house has a multi-level roof covered in pink concrete tiles. Various roof segments are oriented and angled towards different directions. Three of these segments have single solar panels installed on them. Text call-outs on the image point to each of these solar panels.

Buying solar panels in Australia is surprisingly straightforward these days. Here’s how I went about getting them.

1. Researched solar power for the home

These were some of the resources I used:

2. Figured out what we wanted from solar, now and in the future

In our case this was:

  • Short term: install as many solar panels as possible.

  • Medium term: replace our gas stove with an induction one and our instantaneous gas hot water system with an electric one (either storage or heat pump).

  • Long term: add a home battery and, once we buy an electric vehicle (EV), add an EV charger to our solar system.

This meant we didn’t want to get a basic solar system that would serve just our current needs. We wanted to get a system that would support our future electrification plans.

3. Found solar installers and got quotes

Finding good solar system installers can be a challenge but, fortunately, these two services got me free quotes from qualified and vetted installers:

  1. SolarQuotes, which is the service recommended by CHOICE. I’ve been a member of CHOICE since 2011 and those folks have never once steered me wrong.

  2. Solar Savers, which is a joint local government initiative that helps residents make the switch to solar power.

I ended up requesting two quotes from each service.

I also got a recommendation from a friend who’d had their solar system installed last year.

Graphic showing a collage of two website screenshots, one for SolarQuotes and one for Solar Savers.

4. Picked a solar installer and a solar system configuration

Most of the installers got in touch with me pretty quickly and I had good chats with all of them.

Three of the installers submitted formal quotes and we ended up picking the one that recommended the most appropriate system for our house and also had the best customer service.

This wasn’t the cheapest option presented to us, but it was the one that would give us the most bang-for-buck for our type of roof, because it turns out we have a “complex roof”.

Photo showing the green-and-gold, multi-layered, tall, pointy domes of Saint Sophia'‘s Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Source: Jonathan Khoo on Flickr)

Finding an installer who does complex roofs

We have a concrete tile roof but, as you will have seen in the photo at the top of the post, instead of two large, flat surfaces that run the length of the house above the first floor, our roof has lots of smaller segments that are oriented (and, therefore, angled) towards different compass directions. Also, we have roof segments on both the ground and first floor.

Designing and installing a solar system around this type of segmented, multi-level roof takes time, effort, and money, which is something many (if not all) large solar installers don’t want to do. I learned this from the first installer who contacted me about providing a quote.

He was from a large company that (I learned) only does standard installs, which is probably why that company’s pricing is so competitive. After looking at our roof using his web mapping tool, he said he wouldn’t be submitting a quote. He then recommended I find a local, more specialised installer who would take the time to build a personalised and optimised system for us. This would cost us more, he said, but it would get us the best system.

The installer we ended up going with was Specialized Solar & Electrical (aka Spec Solar). Their system designer built us a customised system that, while more expensive than a similar design from another installer, was still within our budget.

Here’s a depiction of the physical layout of our final install, as shown in the SolarEdge smartphone app.

Screenshot of the Solar Edge smartphone app showing graphics of twelve solar panels and how they are physical laid out on the roof of a house. The solar panel elements of this graphic are shaded based on how much energy each panel is currently generating.

The Spec Solar designer managed to squeeze twelve solar panels onto our complex roof, but:

  • only six of these panels are oriented north (ie facing the sun all the time);

  • seven had to be installed as single panels on their own little roof segment; and

  • four had to be installed on ground-floor roof segments because there wasn’t enough space on our first-floor roof segments.

Complexity limits your choice of technology

Given the way we had to spread the solar panels out across different roof levels and orientations, as well as our plan to add a home battery in the future, our best option was to go with an optimised inverter system from SolarEdge. (The second-best option was a microinverter system from Enphase.)

The benefits of the optimised inverter approach are:

Optimised power: With a power optimiser sitting under each solar panel, our system can maintain the highest overall power output regardless of the output of each individual solar panel. Meaning the system’s overall output isn’t limited by panels that are producing the least amount of power at the time (because they’re in the shade or because they’re facing east or west) which is what would happen with a conventional string inverter system.

Battery ready: All SolarEdge inverters are hybrid inverters, which is the type of inverter you need if you want to add a home battery to your system. Had we gone with one of the cheaper quotes, we would have had to upgrade to a hybrid inverter once we were ready to install a battery. (And if we’d swapped to a hybrid inverter in that cheaper quote, its updated price would have been close to the quote we did end up going with.)

Future proofing: Even though our solar panels can produce a maximum of 5.7kW from the sun, we went with a 10kW inverter to convert all this DC current in to useable AC current. We wanted that extra capacity so that our future battery wouldn’t be constrained by the limits of our solar panels. EV chargers, for example, run at 7kW minimum. So to be able to use our (future) battery to charge our (future) EV, or to power the whole house at night off the battery, we’d need an inverter that could handle this higher load.

Graphic showing the working of an optimised solar inverter system. (Source: SolarQuotes)

There is one downside to picking the optimised inverter system we did, and that is being locked into the SolarEdge ecosystem. I’m okay with that though. SolarEdge is more expensive than its (relatively new) optimised-inverter competition, but its current line of products are reliable and they come with a good warranty.

In case you’re interested in the details, these are the components we got installed:

  • a SolarEdge SE10000H single-phase hybrid inverter and

  • twelve AIKO NEOSTAR 3S+54 dual-glass 480W solar panels (with SolarEdge optimisers under each one).

SpecSolar had actually quoted us for AIKO’s 475kW solar panels but those were out of stock at the time of installation, so they upgraded us to the 480kW panels without an extra charge.

Screenshot from a solar system quote showing system details for solar panels and and inverter, as well as a bar chart monthly energy production estimates.

5. Got the installation and inspection done

Once we agreed to proceed with SpecSolar, everything moved pretty quickly.

On 2 February the solar system designer came over to do a site inspection, after which he tweaked the design and sent us a final quote. We signed the quote that same day.

On 10 February the team from SpecSolar came over and did the installation. That took several hours, from 7am to around 3pm.

Photo taken from inside a residential garage with its roller door opened. On the floor of the garage are several large toolboxes, some of which are open. Other construction tools and equipment are also lying on the floor. Parked in the driveway, directly outside the garage, is a trailer filled half-way with uninstalled solar panels.

They don’t switch on your solar system the day they install it, by the way. The electrical part of this installation (the bit installed in our garage) needs to be inspected and signed-off by a licenced electrical inspector first. That happened on 19 February.

So 44 days after I first requested quotes, our solar system was switched on and connected to our house.

6. Activated our feed-in tariff

The final (and technically optional) step in this process was getting our electricity retailer and electricity provider – Momentum Energy and Jemena, respectively – to receive the excess solar power we were generating from our panels.

That whole process took over a month but, happily, SpecSolar managed it all on our behalf.

Our solar feed-in was switched on on 25 March. That means our excess power is now going back into the electricity grid, for which we are being paid a tiny amount ($1.18 for the six days in March that this was active, for example).

7. Profit

So how is everything going? It’s going pretty great, actually!

We generated a good amount of power

March is the first full month we’ve had these solar panels and, over the course of that month, they produced 125kWh of power. We, however, used only 24% of this power.

Screenshot from the SolarEdge smartphone app showing the energy balance from a solar system installation for the month of March 2026. The bar charts and text tell us that 125kWh of energy was produced, 76% of which went to the grid and 24% went to the home. Of the total energy consumed by the home, 52% of that came from the grid and 48% came from the sun.

It didn’t come as a surprise that we used less than a quarter of the power generated. In fact, that was part of the plan.

This solar system wasn’t provisioned for use in just the sunniest days of summer, it was provisioned to provide us with sufficient power even on the gloomiest days of winter.

The proportion of solar power we use in winter will be much higher!

We generated that power in spite of gloomy weather

March 2026 was actually a pretty cloudy month. Here is a table showing the month’s daily weather observations from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Screenshot showing a table titled, “Melbourne, Victoria March 2026 Daily Weather Observations”. The table shows daily minimum and maximum temperatures, as well as readings for rain and wind. It also shows a snapshot of these readings at 9am and 3pm on each day. (Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology)

The “Cld” (ie cloud cover) column under the 9am and 3pm sections shows the fraction of sky covered by cloud. This is measured in eights, meaning a score of 4 tells us that four-eighths (ie half) of the sky was covered by cloud.

This table tells us that, on 16 of the 31 days of March, we had cloud cover of 4 or above at both 9am and 3pm. And if you count-up the days in which we had cloud cover of 4 or above at either 9am or 3pm, there were 23 of those days in March.

What does this mean? It means we managed to use only 24% of the power generated by our solar panels during a month in which half the sky was covered in cloud for more than half the time :)

Basically, it means I’m confident that our system is provisioned suitably for whatever winter will throw at us.

We used a lot less power from the grid

What about the other side of the equation? How did generating solar power affect the amount of electricity we pulled from the grid?

According to our electricity bills:

  • In March 2025, we drew 291.9kWh of electricity from the grid.

  • In March 2026, we drew 157.1kWH of electricity from the grid – which is 54% of what we used this same time last year :)

That result is pretty much exactly what the Spec Solar predicted for us, by the way: an approximate halving of our electricity bill.

Screenshot of a smartphone notification from the Powerpal app with the title, “Your weekly report is ready!”. The notification reads, “You spent $28.46 – 46% less than last week. Check your report for more ways to save!”

But wait, there’s more!

Getting a solar system installed on our roof isn’t the only energy upgrade we did to our house this year. We also upgraded the insulation in our roof.

The roof above our house already had some insulation (likely around R4) but there were large gaps in the batts where there was no insulation at all. Also, the roof above our garage had zero insulation.

‘R’ is a measure of thermal resistance, by the way, and the level recommended for roofs in Melbourne is between R6.0 and R7.0.

What did we do?

We got R4.1 insulation added to our garage and to the gaps in the rest of our roof. And then we got R2.5 spray insulation added on top this R4.1 insulation.

This means our garage now has R4.1 insulation and our house has about R6.5 insulation :)

Photo of a roof cavity above a house showing the wooden pillars that support the tiles installed on top the roof. A thick layer of white spray insulation has been added to the the existing insulation.

Because of the reduced heat transfer from inside to outside, it will now cost us less to cool our house in summer and to heat our house in winter. In fact, as the weather in Melbourne has cooled, we’re already noticing that the temperature in the upstairs rooms doesn’t drop as quickly at night as it used to.

(We used Solar Savers to get quotes for this insulation installation too, by the way.)

What next?

Those are the only energy upgrades we had planned for this year.

With an approximate halving of our electricity bill, it should take us roughly seven to eight years to pay off our solar system investment. This includes the cost of regular cleaning and maintenance of the equipment we’ve just had installed.

Electric vehicle

If we drove our car a lot, upgrading that to an EV and getting an EV charger installed would be next on our list.

But we drive so little that we only fill-up on petrol every six to seven weeks, so upgrading to an EV is not worth the investment. (And EVs sure are expensive, especially first-hand ones!)

Household appliances

We’ll probably look into upgrading our stove and hot water system next, since both of those currently run on natural gas.

I don’t think that’ll happen for at least another four or five years though.

Home battery

Depending on how well our solar panels perform in winter, though, we might consider getting a home battery installed sooner rather than later.

The largest chunk of our annual electricity expenditure goes towards heating our house in winter, especially at night. If we find that our solar panels are generating enough excess energy during the day in winter – energy that’s enough to cover most or all of our nighttime heating – then it makes financial sense to store that excess in a home battery to use at night.

This will increase our payback time on the whole system, of course. The payback time on a home battery is about as the same as it is on solar panels: seven to eight years. But if the winter daytime excess energy numbers are good, then the total payback time of the combined systems might increase to only ten years instead of doubling to fourteen or fifteen years.

I’ll keep an eye on the stats over winter and we’ll make a determination either way in summer next year.

Enough solar for now

For now, though, we’re just going to enjoy having the sun power about half of our lives.

Sometimes there isn’t even much for the sun to power. A couple of weeks ago, for example, Nadia was teaching at uni and I was working from home. Even though it was a cloudy day with intermittent drizzles, our solar panels still managed to generate enough energy to export most of it to the grid!

(Things would have been different had I been running the air conditioner, dish washer, or washing machine, of course. But that’s not something we do every day in summer.)

Screenshot of the SolarEdge smartphone app showing the amount of energy currently being produced on a rainy, 22 degree Celsius day. 0.62kW of energy is being produced by the solar panels. 0.24kW of that is going to the home and 0.38kW of that is going to the grid.

For now we’re just happy with what we have. The rest we’ll figure out next year.