Leaving the Amazon Kindle ecosystem

The Amazon Kindle is an amazing product that revolutionised the world of reading when it was launched in 2007.

Sadly, it is now time for me to completely leave this ecosystem.

Happily, there are other, non-shitty ecosystems that you can get into instead.

More on all that in a minute.

Long-time Kindle user

I got my first Kindle in 2010 as a birthday present from Nadia. This was a second generation Kindle and the first model that was available outside of the US, hence its ‘Kindle 2 international’ name.

The first ebooks I bought were Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series and Larsson was the first author to sell over a million books on Kindle.

Screenshot of an Amazon Kindle library showing the purchase of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium series Book 1)’ by Stieg Larsson on 14 September 2010.

I even got this Kindle signed by James “The Amazing” Randi when I attended The Amaz!ng Meeting in Sydney towards the end of 2010 :)

Photo of the back of an Amazon Kindle device that’s been signed in gold marker. The signature reads, “To Ameel – James Randi”.

Since 2010, various versions and iterations of Kindles have been my default book reading device.

Close-up photo of a man holding a Kindle Oasis device while sitting in a residential garden. The eReader’s screen shows the cover of the book, ‘The Left-Handed Booksellers of London’ by Garth Nix.

As a result, Nadia and I have built an extensive ebook collection.

Screenshot of an Amazon account ‘Digital Content’ screen showing 760 ebooks and 75 audiobooks.

I also have a decent audiobook collection on Audible, which is great for books like Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, in which your experience is elevated by the sound effects, or Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, in which the narration really helps you with the pronunciation of names.

Screenshot of an Audible library listing three books: ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir; ‘Lock In (Narrated by Amber Benson)’ by John Scalzi; and ‘Ancillary Justice: The Imperial Radch Series, Books 1’ by Ann Leckie.

Amazon purchased Audible in 2008 and, for a while, they were fantastic stewards of this service. For example, they launched the Audible Frontiers imprint through which they started recording science fiction and fantasy books that deserved to be heard; and they launched the ‘Whispersync for Voice’ feature that allowed you to switch seamlessly between the Kindle ebook and Audible audiobook versions of the book you were reading.

All of this was really cool and, as a result, I have been heavily invested in the Kindle-Audible ecosystem for years.

Not all sunshine and rainbows

Your books are not yours

The biggest issue with the Kindle and Audible ecosystem has always been that you don’t actually “buy” any books, you only “licence” them.

What this means is that Amazon can delete any book from your library if it itself loses the licence to that book – like it did in 2009 with, ironically, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Though in that specific case it was because Amazon discovered it didn’t own the correct licence in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You also can’t resell, back-up, or archive the books you thought you had purchased, and your kids can’t inherit your ebook collection either. In fact, if you delete your Amazon account, all your books go with it.

This has not been a concern to me because there are, um, workarounds to these restrictions for both Kindle and Audible.

Animated GIF showing a man tapping his head as if to say, “that’s smart”.

Market power and DRM

Even though this ecosystem’s licencing restrictions weren’t an issue for me, Amazon’s market dominance and, later, market abuse became an issue, especially on the audiobook side. This became so egregious that, in 2014, Cory Doctorow stopped selling his audiobooks via Audible.

It took me a little longer to catch on, so with the exception of Project Hail Mary in 2021, I stopped buying audiobooks from Audible in 2017. These days, if I do buy an audiobook, I buy it directly from the author if I can – like I do with Doctorow’s books. (It helps, of course, that I rarely listen to audiobooks any more. These days I mostly listen to podcasts.)

Things aren’t as bad on the Kindle side since there have long been viable alternatives. Kobo launched its ebook store in 2009, for example, and then its first eReader in 2010. Authors, publishers, and other booksellers have been selling ebooks online for years as well.

Not all doom and gloom, either

Not everything about the Kindle ecosystem is bad, of course. They were pioneers and innovators in the e-ink reader space, their device-to-device synchronisation is great, their devices themselves are excellent…the list goes on.

Low ebook prices

Amazon also made the most of their market power by, basically, forcing publishers to keep mass-market ebook prices low. We all know that book publishers (like film studios and record companies) work very hard to extract as much value as they can from both creators and consumers. But, for a while, thanks to the likes of Apple (with iTunes) and Amazon (with Kindle), the price of music tracks and ebooks remained low.

To counter Amazon’s insistence on keeping ebook prices low (typically US$9.99 for most fiction books), Apple and the large book publishers colluded to raise overall ebook prices, for which they were rightly sued. The book publishers all settled so, in 2013, only Apple was found guilty of price fixing.

Ebook prices have gone up since then, but I’m sure they would have be a lot higher if publishers could have had their way all along.

Still the default choice

The upshot of all this is that, even though I’ve been buying ebooks and audiobooks from authors, publishers, and other online bookstores in parallel for years, Amazon remained my go-to place for buying ebooks.

Switching ecosystems

Laziness, inertia, and a few remnants of brand loyalty (more so after the book publishers’ collusion) kept me in the Kindle ecosystem, but Amazon’s enshittification continued, so last year I finally had the time and brain-space to start moving to a different ecosystem.

I prefer to read on e-ink devices (meaning no Apple Books or Google Books), which means the obvious alternative was the Kobo ecosystem and so that’s where I went.

Hello Kobo

I formally started my move to the Kobo ebook and audiobook ecosystem when I bought the Kobo Clara Colour eReader. I still had a few unread books on Kindle – which I’m still making my way through, by the way – but that was when I switched to using this Kobo as my primary reading device.

Making the switch was pretty easy since I already had a Kobo account. I’d created one when Humble Bundle offered a great Kobo-only deal on the entire Seanan McGuire urban fantasy book collection and, since she’s my favourite author, I used this opportunity to create an account and put one foot in the door of this nicer ecosystem. (And I’m not just saying ‘nicer’ because Kobo is a Canadian company.)

Beefing up my library

I haven’t transferred all my Kindle books to my Kobo eReader – I have them archived on my computer and I’ve read most of them anyway ­– but I have bought a bunch more ebooks since then. The recent Ursula K. Le Guin Humble Bundle helped with that too!

All this to say that I’ve already got myself a good starting library in the Kobo ecosystem, which is cool.

Screenshot of the Kobo library showing 93 ebooks.

Final nail in the Kindle coffin

For me the final nail in the coffin for the Kindle ecosystem came when Amazon announced that, from 26 February 2025, they would no longer allow you to download ebooks to your computer to transfer them via USB to your Kindle device.

Screenshot from an Amazon Kindle library pop-up window with the title, “Download & transfer via USB”. The text under this reads, “Transfer Tip: After downloading, use your USB cable to connect your computer and Kindle. Your Kindle will appear as a drive on your computer. Copy your downloaded file from your computer to your Kindle’s documents folder.” Below this is an information icon with this text next to it, “Starting February 26, 2025, the “Download & Transfer via USB” option will no longer be available. You can still send Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled devices by selecting the “Deliver or Remove from Device” option.” This is followed by a hyperlink that reads, “Learn more about managing downloads”.

This is the mechanism I use to archive my ebooks (ie I don’t download them to copy to my Kindle, I download them to back up my library). So, with this option gone, none of the books I’ll buy in the future will actually be mine to own.

Screenshot of a news article by Andew Liszewski from The Verge with the title, “Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books”. The article slug reads, “After February 26th, you can only download books from the Kindle store to your e-reader over Wi-Fi”.

That to me is unacceptable, so it was finally time to pull the plug and exit the entire Kindle ecosystem once and for all.

Screenshot of an article by Michael Kozlowsky in Good E-Reader with the title, “Amazon is not to be trusted anymore with their Kindle e-reader”.

Last few Kindle downloads

My first step was to download the 1-2 books I hadn’t yet downloaded from my Kindle library.

I have a recurring monthly reminder to do these downloads but, because I’d been spending all my time on my Kobo, I hadn’t kept this up.

Cancelling Kindle preorders

My second, and more future-focused, step was to cancel the three preorders I had with Kindle. Fortunately, this is really easy to do.

Screenshot of an Amazon account’s ‘Your Orders’ screen that shows two cancelled book preorders. The cancelled preorders are for ‘Overgrowth’ by Mira Grant and ‘Exit Strategy’ by Lee Child and Andrew Child.

Preordering on Kobo

My final step was to add those preorders to my Kobo account.

Though, as I discovered, I had mistakenly preordered the upcoming Mira Grant book on both ecosystems already! (Mira Grant is one of Seanan McGuire’s aliases, fyi.)

Screenshot of a Kobo library showing eight books, six of which are preorders. The preorders are for ‘Overgrowth’ by Mira Grant, ‘The Shattering Peace’ by John Scalzi, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me’ by Django Wexler, ‘Automatic Noodle’ by Annalee Newitz, ‘The River Has Roots’ by Amal El-Mohtar, and ‘Exit Strategy’ by Lee Child and Andrew Child. The two books in the library are, ‘The Reappearance of Rachel Price’ by Holly Jackson and ‘Under the Whispering Door’ by TJ Klune.  

End of an era

So that’s it then.

I’ll read the last few books I have left on my Kindle, buy a second Kobo device (this one for Nadia, since we share a library), and move on with my life.

It’s sad to be leaving an ecosystem that brought me so much joy and convenience, and also brought so much good to the world of reading. But once you’ve made enshittification your business strategy, the only way for your ecosystem is down. And the sooner users jump ship to a more open, distributed ecosystem, the better.

*sigh*

Screenshot of an email from Kobo with the title, “Congrats on finishing Five Survive”. An image at the top of the email shows the Rakuten Kobo logo and has the title, “We’ve got your next read covered”. Text below this reads, “We love a good ending, but there’s nothing better than a new beginning”.

Start of a new era

Fortunately, all is not lost!

There are eight days left to download your Kindle books, so there’s plenty of time to archive your whole library.

Once you’ve done that, there are three large ebook ecosystems you can easily switch to: Kobo (Canada), Apple Books (USA), and Google Books (USA). There a bunch smaller ecosystems too, of course, like Vivlio (France), Tolino (Germany), and Nook (USA). However I think most people will jump to one of the other big ones. (Unless you’re a big Barnes & Noble customer, in which case the Nook is for you.)

Alternatively, if you don’t want to get into a new, closed ecosystem, you can buy DRM-free ebooks from lots of places online (including most bookstores) and use any number of non-affiliated eReader devices to read your books, with ONYX BOOX and reMarkable being the most popular in Australia.

So let the reading continue! And hopefully this time without any DRM or shitty business strategies to slow you down :)

PS. Good E-Reader wrote a nice, long history of Kobo back in 2018 if you’re into that kind of stuff.

21 years!

Nadia and I are laughing all the way to our 21st wedding anniversary :)

Selfie of a man and a woman laughing while trying to take a selfie. The man is bald, with a salt-and-pepper beard. He is wearing eyeglasses and a while linen button-down shirt. The woman has long hair. She is wearing glasses, large gold earrings, a gold necklace, and a dark-and-light green printed dress.

Tunnel and alley in the CBD

I took a couple of photos while I was in the Melbourne CBD. The compositions had a lot of great light-and-dark contrast, so I figured they’d work well in black-and-white as well – which they do :)

Crossing under St Kilda Road (in black-and-white)

Black-and-white photo of a very wide and very tall pedestrian underpass beneath a major road. Most of the underpass is in shadow and there is a bright square of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, where you can see a fence, some trees, and some buildings. A man and a woman are walking through this tunnel and are about to come out the other side.

Crossing under St Kilda Road (in colour)

Photo of a very wide and very tall pedestrian underpass beneath a major road. Most of the underpass is in shadow and there is a bright square of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, where you can see a brightly-painted fence, some trees, and some buildings. A man and a woman are walking through this tunnel and are about to come out the other side.

Lingham Lane in the Central Business District (in black-and-white)

Black-and-white photo of a short, empty, and very clean alley in a central business district. The section near the photographer is in shadow, but the rest of the alley is brightly sunlit.

Lingham Lane in the Central Business District (in colour)

Photo of a short, empty, and very clean alley in a central business district. The section near the photographer is in shadow, but the rest of the alley is brightly sunlit.

Australian Open 2025

Less than an hour into day one at the 2025 Australian Open tennis tournament and a big thunderstorm rolled across Melbourne.

And the intermittent heavy rain stuck around till late in the afternoon.

Screenshot of a weather app showing a severe thunderstorm warning with heavy rainfall expected for most of Melbourne city and surrounds.

Fortunately, Nadia and I got there just as the gates opened, so we managed to watch at least a little bit of tennis on the outside courts before the rain came.

Importantly, we managed to take our annual Australia Open selfie :)

Here are my photos (and selfies!) from the day.

Court-side camera operator

Photo looking down from the stands at a video camera operator sitting on the side of a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. The operator is wearing a cap and a bulky pair of headphones, and there is a small, blue umbrella over his head. The camera has a waterproof cover on it.

Umpire and ball kids

Photo looking down at the net of a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. Two ball kids are standing on either end of the net, and a tennis umpire is sitting on a raised chair at the far end of the net.

Tatjana Maria’s ball toss

Photo of tennis player Tatjana Maria who has just tossed a tennis ball into the air as part of her serve.

Watching the first round match

This photo was entirely accidental! I was trying to get a photo of the player framed between the out-of-focus heads of the people sitting in front of me (which I managed to do in the next photo). But when taking this photo, I’d mistakenly left my camera on its ‘zone focus’ setting and it picked the wrong subject to focus on. Oh well. Even though this photo was an accident, it was a happy one because I quite like how the photo turned out :)

Photo of the back and side of a woman and her young daughter watching a women’s singles tennis match.

Tatjana Maria’s service

Photo of tennis player Tatjana Maria at full stretch as she serves the ball on a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court.

Ball kid retrieving the ball

Photo looking down from the stands at a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. One of the ball kids is running up to retrieve a ball from the middle of the left-side court.

Orange shoe and dropped corn snacks

Photo looking down between the spectator chairs at a tennis arena. The subject of the photo is the foot of a person wearing grey-and-white New Balance sneakers with bright orange highlights. Next to this shoe are two orange corn kernels that have been dropped on the concrete.

Airplane disappearing into the clouds above Melbourne

Photo of a small jet engine aircraft flying above some tall buildings on an overcast day. The aircraft is climbing and is about to disappear into the cloud cover.

Thunderstorm less than an hour into the first day’s play

Photo of the outside of a tennis arena with large photo banners set along its side showing past championship winners. The outside area is almost completely empty of spectators because it is raining heavily. Despite the heavy rain, ushers wearing black pants and yellow shirts are standing under red umbrellas that have been affixed next to each area entrance. A supervisor wearing a black skirt and blue polo shirt is walking between two of these umbrellas with a blue folder over her head to minimise the amount of rain she gets on her eyeglasses.

2025 edition of our annual Australian Open selfie 1/3

Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while they sit on blue coloured seats at a tennis court. Both are wearing straw hats and sunglasses. The woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top and the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt.

2025 edition of our annual Australian Open selfie 2/3

Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while standing outside the entrance to Margaret Court Arena, a tennis arena in Melbourne, Australia. Both are wearing straw hats and glasses. The the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt and the woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top.

2025 edition of our annual Australian Open selfie 3/3

Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while standing outside the steps that lead to the entrance of Rod Laver Arena, a large tennis arena in Melbourne, Australia. Both are wearing straw hats, glasses, and black face masks. The the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt and the woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top.

[Photo walk] University of Melbourne #3

My first photo walk of the 2025 was a quick one on a bright, sunny day during summer break at the University of Melbourne.

John Medley Building East Tower

Wide angle photo looking up at the first four stories of a 1970s Brutalist-style university campus building with a light-brown brick facade. A sign above the entrance reads, “John Medley Building East Tower”. The photographer is standing under the third-storey walkway that connects to the west tower. Outside the building, on both sides of the entrance, there are several bicycle hoops, one of which has a bicycle locked to it.

John Medley Building West Tower

Wide angle photo looking up at the first four stories of a 1970s Brutalist-style university campus building with a light-brown brick facade. A sign above the entrance reads, “John Medley Building West Tower”. The photographer is standing under the third-storey walkway that connects to the east tower. Outside the building, on both sides of the entrance, there are several bicycle hoops, and there are four bicycles locked to these hoops.

Shaded seating on the Electrical Engineering Lawn

Photo of a long, wide lawn between two walkways on a university campus. There are several tall, old trees growing in a line along one side of this lawn. Some wrought iron outdoor tables and chairs have been placed the shade of some of these trees.

Quiet, solitary spot on the West Lawn

Photo of a single, yellow coloured, wrought iron outdoor chair lying in the shade of a line of trees alongside a lawn in a university campus. To the left of the photo is a wide walkway leading to a campus building.

Old Arts Building through the trees

Photo of one part of a 1920s Tudor-Gothic style building with a light-brown freestone facade, as seen through a gap in the branches of a tree.

Seating area outside the Old Arts Building

Photo of a small, brick courtyard surrounded by trees on three sides and, on the fourth side, a 1920s Tudor-Gothic style building with a light-brown freestone facade. In the courtyard are five wrought iron chairs arranged around a wrought iron table.

Bicycle hoops outside the Baillieu Library on a bright, sunny day

Photo looking through a long row of bicycle hoops installed in a brick walkway next to a garden.

Baillieu Library

Photo looking up at the windows of a five-storey, modernist, 1950s design, university building with floor-to-ceiling windows along the outside.

Photographer in an old lift

Photo of a man facing the mirror-wall of a 1970s, all-wood-panel elevator. The man is wearing olive green shorts, a black printed t-shirt, and a black cap. His t-shirt reads, in stylised bright yellow-and-orange text, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” and, in all-capital letters, “don’t panic”. He is wearing glasses and has a short-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard. The man is holding a camera at stomach height and is taking a photograph of himself, as reflected in the lift's mirror.

Favourite music in 2024

I also have three honourable mentions, two of which were released at the end of 2023 (though I listened to them mostly in 2024) and one of which is an EP:

Songs

These are the songs that got stuck in my head most often and for the longest time in 2024 (in alphabetical order):

Shout-outs

Production

I can’t remember the last time I listened to a song on a constant loop as much as I listened to St. Vincent Sweetest Fruit. The layers, the soundscapes, the loops – there’s so much to unpack, enjoy on its own, and then repack and enjoy as a whole in this song. Phenomenal. (Here’s a production breakdown of that song, in case you’re interested.)

I love that Dua Lipa released two versions of her Radical Optimism album: a regular version and an extended version. It’s great having access to longer, more groovy, more atmospheric, and less radio-conforming versions of all her latest songs. (Reminds me of Peter Gabriel releasing two versions of his i/o album in 2023 – a Bright-Side Mix and Dark-Side Mix – each produced by a different mixer.)

Live versions

Half of my favourite albums this year here live albums, which is great to see. I love a good live album.

Chris Stapleton and Dua Lipa performed a live duet of Stapleton’s Think I’m In Love With You that at the 59th Academy Of Country Music Awards. I also love a good live duet :)

Remembering Maggie (2013-2024)

Today would have been our eighth Maggie-versay because we adopted Maggie – our red heeler/kelpie mix – on 30 December 2016.

Photo looking down at a red/brown with big ears looking up at the photographer.

Sadly Maggie didn’t make it to this milestone, passing away at home with the help of the lovely folks at Goodbye Good Boy on the night of 27 December.

What happened?

Maggie loved food. So it was a bit of a surprise when, around the middle of October, she refused to eat her monthly flea and tick medication, and then didn’t finish her dinner that night. When she kept refusing food, we took her to our vet. A couple of tests later we confirmed that she had chronic kidney disease, likely brought on by old age.

When she continued to feel unwell, she was referred to a specialist vet. After some more tests we learned that she also had a urinary tract infection. Fortunately, this infection was quickly treated with antibiotics and she bounced back from feeling miserable in just a day or two.

Chronic kidney disease, however, is incurable. And, depending on what stage the disease is at, you really just have a few weeks to a few months left. You can slow its progress, of course. But, as we discovered, hers was quite advanced.  

(She also had a small tumour next to one of her kidneys, which a biopsy showed contained a slow-moving cancer. But given the rest of her diagnosis, that ended up being a non-issue – just like her arthritis, which we kept treating even though we knew it wasn’t going to be an ongoing concern.)

Photo of a Patient Discharge Information folder from Advanced Vetcare, a veterinary specialist centre and 24 hour emergency hospital. Handwritten on the folder in black marker is the name ‘Maggie’ with a little love heart icon drawn after her name.

So what did we do?

Once your pet has received a chronic kidney disease diagnosis, all you can do is take care of them till it’s time for them to go. The HHHHHMM quality of life scale developed by veterinary oncologist Dr Alice Villalobos helps you decide when that time has come.

Maggie was a happy, energetic, stubborn, no-nonsense dog with an insatiable appetite who led a really good life with us, so she made the best of her last few weeks as well. She wasn’t eating much, so she didn’t have as much energy as before. But we stayed home to spend as much time with her as we could, so she hung out with us all the time. We took her for her daily walks, which were the highlight of her day. Even on her last day, we went for a short walk on our street, which she would have happily extended if she hadn’t been feeling so worn out.

But worn out she was. Over a two week period in December her quality of life score dropped from the 50s to the 40s. A score of 35 or more is considered an acceptable quality of life, but it’s best to let your pet go just before they start to get miserable. So on 27 December we made the call.

Maggie had had her daily walk; she’d spent time in the garden, getting pats and cuddles from all of us; and she’d even eaten a bite of beef-steak fat, which was her favourite.

She passed away in her favourite orange, fuzzy bed, asleep and snoring like a champ.

Remembering Maggie through photos

To remember the fabulous years we had with Maggie, here are some photos of her that I haven’t uploaded before.

Maggie’s first walk with us (31 Dec 2016)

Photo of a woman walking a dog in a large public park.

Licking Nadia (2017)

Photo of a woman in a living room, sitting and leaning back on the right-side arm of a black leather sofa. She is holding a red/brown dog in her lap, with the dog stretching-out and raising her head so she can lick the woman’s cheek. 

Sleeping between Ameel and Nadia (2019)

Photo of a half-asleep red/brown dog lying in a large bed. The dog is sleeping between the two humans in the bed, with its head on a pillow, while facing the photographer.

Dog with the Pearl Earring (2019)

(I have uploaded a version of this collage before, but this one is better.)

Collage of two photos that have a passing similarity. The one on the left is of a red/brown dog with a yellow bed cover over its head that is covering both its ears. The dog is looking over its left shoulder at the photographer. On the right is a photo of the painting ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Johannes Vermeer. The painting is of a woman wearing a yellow-and-blue turban looking who is looking over her left shoulder at the painter. The woman is wearing what appears to be a very large pearl as an earring.

Cuddles with Nadia, who is just back from the gym (2020)

Photo of a woman in gym gear cuddling a resigned looking red/brown dog on a sofa.

You can find all my published photos of Maggie in the ‘Maggie’ category on this blog (or in the ‘Maggie’ album on my Flickr profile).

End of an era

Maggie’s passing is the end of an era for me and Nadia. We’ve both acquired, raised, and lost dogs before, but that was always with our families. Maggie was our family in Australia, and now we’re one family member short. *sigh*

Photo of a red/brown dog waiting in anticipation at the top of a flight of steps. The photo is taken from near ground level, behind the dog’s bum.

My favourite typefaces (December 2024)

[NOTE: For the most up-to-date version of my favourites list, see my ‘Typography’ page.]

It’s December 2024 and, of the typefaces I currently have a licence to, these are my favourites. (Like last time, I’m just going to list them, not talk about them.)

I’ve grouped the typefaces based on their level of formality, as discussed in my ‘How I think about typefaces’ post. And I’ve sorted them in decreasing order of versatility.

Also, I’ve only included typefaces that work well for body text or occasional text (ie short blocks). This list would be far too long if I listed all the heading and display typefaces I liked!

Serif typefaces

Sans serif typefaces

Slab serif typefaces

Monospace typefaces

Typeface wish list (realistic)

The way I acquire typefaces is by maintaining an up-to-date list of the realistically affordable typefaces I want to buy next. If any of those typefaces go on sale, I snap them up. But if there are some that never go on sale, I wait till I get my annual bonus from work and then buy one or two families every year.

Since I maintain that up-to-date wish list of future favourite typefaces (at least the more affordable ones), I figured I’d include that here as well :)

Do you have any favourite or go-to typefaces? What are they? I’d love to know!

How I think about typefaces

I want to talk about my current favourite typefaces. But in order to do that, I need to explain how I categorise typefaces. So here goes.

When trying to figure out which typeface(s) to use in a project, the first aspect I consider is the level of formality the body text typeface needs to have. Everything else flows from there.

Levels of formality

I put typefaces into formality categories based on the vibe I get from them. And because the formality level of ‘formal’ can be context dependent, I split that into subcategories.

This gives me six “vibe” categories which are, from least to most formal:

  • Friendly

  • Casual

  • Chill (formal)

  • Neutral (formal)

  • Stylish (formal)

  • Elegant

If this sound a bit like I’m describing fashion, then you’re correct. I think of these formality levels as either dress codes or as the type of pen I’d use to achieve that level of formality.

Applying this to typography, here’s how I’d sort some familiar typefaces into these categories.

No categorisation system is perfect, of course, and many typefaces are versatile enough to be placed in more than one category [1]. But my objective here isn’t to create the perfect categorisation, it’s to give me the language I can use to compare the vibes of two similar typefaces.

Happily, this formality-level approach is surprisingly practical when put into action. For example, I can say things like, “nah, that typeface has features that are too elegant for the vibe I’m trying to set in this situation” or “this typeface is on the chill side of neutral, which means it has the perfect level of friendliness while still being formal enough to use in this project”.

More than that, I can use this system as a whole to help me make typography decisions. Here’s how that works.

Start with neutral

Every time I kick off a new project, I start by considering if a neutral (formal) typeface is what I need. This is what I’d use if I didn’t want the typeface to be noticed. Or if it was noticed, I’d want people to assess it as neutral. Think Times New Roman, Helvetica, or Arial. Or Novela and Neue Montreal, like in the example below. If we were still in the days of handwriting everything, the vibe I’d be going for is text written with a fountain pen.

If neutral isn’t what I’m after, then I can go in two directions: warmer and friendlier or cooler and more elegant.

If I’m going in the cooler direction, then I’ll look for a stylish (formal) typeface. Something like Sabon or Caslon (both of which you see in a lot of printed books) or Futura. Or Writer and Cooper Hewitt, like in the example below. The vibe here is slightly more fancy/artsy, like text written with a fine felt-tip pen.

If that’s not enough, I’ll look for an elegant typeface. Think Baskerville, Palatino, or Avenir. Or Stempel Garamond and Noah, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a calligraphy pen.

But what if I want to go warmer instead?

Moving to the other side of neutral, I’ll look for a chill (formal) typeface. Think Calibri or Georgia. Or Charter and Public Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a rollerball pen.

If that’s not enough, I’ll look for a casual typeface. Something like Century Schoolbook (which a lot of older children’s books were written in) or Work Sans. Or Vollkorn and Ideal Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a standard ballpoint pen – though with good handwriting.

But if that’s still too formal, then I’ll look for a friendly typeface. Something like Gill Sans (the typeface used in classic, orange-and-white Penguin book covers) or Roboto Slab. Or Bariol Serif and Fira Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a marker pen.

A real example

I went through this exact process when deciding which typeface to use in the labels of the graphics above, by the way.

I knew neutral was going to be boring (like DM Sans in the light blue box, below), but I didn’t want to go in the casual direction (like Public Sans in the orange box). I also didn’t want the labels to be too elegant (like Avenir in the dark blue box), so I settled on stylish (like Whitney in the mid blue box). And that’s why all the labels in all the graphics above and below are set in Whitney Semibold and Whitney Medium.

What next?

Now that I’ve explained my typeface categorisation, I can talk about my current favourite typefaces – which I will do so in the next post.

[1] Nudica, for example, I classify as ‘friendly’ because that’s the vibe context I tend to use it in most often. But it could just as easily be classified as ‘stylish’ if you used it in that context.  

[Photo walk] Along the Yarra River #4

It was a hot day in Melbourne today. But if you’re smart about it, you can stay mostly in the shade when you walk from my office to Flinders Street Station along the Yarra River :)

Black swan on the Yarra River

Photo looking down to the banks of an urban river where a black swan is floating, its red beak inside the water as it investigates something below the surface.

I’ve been spotted by the black swan!

Photo looking down to the banks of an urban river where a black swan is floating. The swan has noticed the photographer and is looking straight down the barrel of the camera lens.

GoBoat employee explaining something to boat renters on the Yarra River in Melbourne

Photo of an urban river framed by the underside of bridge that the photographer is standing under. The photo shows three adults and one child in a small, flat-bottomed, motorboat with a table affixed to the middle and bench seating around the sides. This is a rental boat, with the brand name GoBoat painted on its side. An employee of the rental company is standing on the pier from which this boat has just been launched. With one hand raised, the employee is explaining something to the renters inside the boat.

Flying to and from Brisbane

This is the last set of photos from my work trip to Brisbane. As an aviation geek I can’t not post photos from every time I visit an airport or fly anywhere :)

‘Melbourne’ sign at Melbourne International Airport (taken from a taxi at 5:30am)

Photo of a large parking structure and hotel next to an airport terminal. The photo has been taken from inside a taxi. A covered pedestrian walkway extends from the terminal (which is off-camera on the left) to the parking structure (which is on the right of the photo). Below this walkway, on the ground floor, is a large, all-caps, three-dimensional, illuminated sign that reads, ‘Melbourne’.

Refuelling and restocking a Qantas Airbus A330 at Melbourne Airport

Photo of the apron outside a domestic terminal at a large airport. An Airbus A330 aircraft in Qantas livery is parked outside one of the gates. An elevated cabin service cart is delivering food and drink items to the aircraft from the rear-left door. Below the left wing a fuel-pump truck is refuelling the aircraft.

Qantas Airbus A330 waiting at the gate at Melbourne Airport

Photo of the apron outside a domestic terminal at a large airport. An Airbus A330 aircraft in Qantas livery is parked outside one of the gates.

Qantas Airbus A330 pulling up to the gate at Brisbane Airport

Photo of the apron outside a domestic terminal at a large airport. An Airbus A330 aircraft in Qantas livery is taxiing up to one of the gates.

Work bus tour in Brisbane

This set of photos is from a bus tour of my work’s road assets in and around Brisbane.

Heading out on a bus tour in Brisbane

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. A person sitting in the front-most passenger seat is holding a microphone in her hand and is getting ready to speak to the people attending the tour.

On a work bus tour in Brisbane

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. A person sitting in the front-most passenger seat is holding a microphone in her hand and is speaking to the people attending the tour.

Police car waiting to turn left in the Brisbane central business district

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is stopped at a traffic light. Across the intersection, also stopped at this traffic light, is a Queensland Police Service car with its left-turn indicator on.

Driving through the M7 Clem Jones Tunnel (aka Clem7 tunnel)

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is driving through a three-lane tunnel with yellowish lighting.

Heading into the Airport Link tunnel

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is about to drive into a two-lane tunnel with yellowish lighting.

Heading up the Gateway Bridge

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is about to drive up a high, multi-lane bridge.

Driving up the Gateway Bridge

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is about to drive up a high, multi-lane bridge.

Waiting behind a Linfox truck in Brisbane

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is waiting at a turn behind a bright red-and-yellow Linfox truck.

Driving through the Legacy Way tunnel

Photo taken from inside a minibus, looking out the front windscreen. The bus is driving through a two-lane tunnel with yellowish lighting.

In and around the Transurban office in Kedron

Transurban’s Brisbane traffic control centre is located in the suburb of Kedron (you can find it on Google Maps), and there’s a whole office next to it that you can work out of.

So after getting a bus tour of our Brisbane road assets (photos in the next post), that’s the office I worked out of for a few hours. And we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch.

This office is literally an eight minute drive from Brisbane Airport, so it was a super convenient place to hang out before our late afternoon flight back to Melbourne.

Christmas lights at the Transurban Brisbane traffic control room

Photo of multicoloured string lights strung in rows in front of a large window that looks into a motorway traffic control room. The control room has a massive bank of screens set along the back wall. All the screens are showing traffic from CCTV cameras around the road network. In the foreground are several workstations at which traffic control room officers do their work.

Snack table at the traffic control room

Photo looking through a large window with multicoloured string lights hanging down its width. Through the window you can see a large, state-of-the-art motorway traffic control room. In the foreground is a small table on which there is a bowl of fruit with a mesh cover, a couple of baked-goods plastic containers, and a bucket with leftover Halloween candy. The control room has a massive bank of screens set along the back wall. All the screens are showing traffic from CCTV cameras around the road network. In the foreground are several workstations at which traffic control room officers do their work.

Snack table and Christmas tree at the traffic control room

Photo looking at a corner of an office with multicoloured string lights hanging down from a large interior window. In front of these windows is a plastic Christmas tree that has been decorated. There are several small presents lying underneath this tree. Closer to the photographer is a small table with snacks and a fruit bowl placed on it.

Outdoor seating and barbecue area at our Kedron office

Photo of a large, covered outdoor seating area with tables and chairs and lots of large potted plants. A large, eight-bladed ceiling fan is hanging above the seating area.

Pink and purple flowers (no idea what they’re called!)

Photo of two, large flowering bushes in a residential street. One bush has large pink flowers, the other has small purple ones.

Mangoes growing in a front yard

Close-up photo of three mangoes hanging from a tree.

Purple flowers on the sidewalk

Photo looking down at a sidewalk on which there are lots of fallen purple flowers. At the bottom of the photo you can see the photographer is wearing black jeans and white sneakers.

Photographer in a convex safety mirror

Photo of a large, convex safety mirror mounted on a pole. The photographer has stopped to take a photo of himself reflected in this mirror. The photographer is wearing white sneakers; black jeans; a loose, white shirt; and a grey hat.

At the department offsite

This set of Brisbane photos is from the department offsite that was held on the 26th floor of an office building in the CBD. (Not our office building, by the way. That’s on the other side of the CBD.)

Looking down at Kangaroo Point Bridge that spans Brisbane River

Photo looking down from a tall building at a white, single-mast, cable bridge that spans an urban river. This pedestrian and cyclist bridge is in its very final stages of construction, with workers on it finishing up some last-minute electrical fit-outs.

Looking down at Story Bridge that spans Brisbane River

Photo looking down from a tall building (and from between two neighbouring tall buildings) at a large, grey, cantilever bridge that spans an urban river.

Across the road from Level 26 of Admiralty Towers

Photo of the 24th–27th floors of a skyscraper taken from the 26th floor of a neighbouring skyscraper. The photo shows the windows in the walkway between apartments, as well as the balconies of the some of the apartments on these floors.

Ferries around Riverside Ferry Terminal

Photo looking down from a tall building at an urban river. Along one bank of the river is a ferry terminal. One large ferry is departing from this terminal, while another smaller one is approaching.

Keeping us hydrated at our all-day team offsite

Photo of a metal cold water canister with a tap and two very large metal bowls filled with ice and several glass bottles of fruit juice. Both the canister and bowls have a lot of condensation on the outside.

Cold fruit juice for our all-day team offsite

Close-up photo of two very large metal bowls filled with ice and several glass bottles of fruit juice.

Sugar and hydration from our all-day team offsite

Close-up photo of two very large metal bowls filled with ice and several glass bottles of fruit juice.

Underneath the Story Bridge in Brisbane

This third set of Brisbane photos is from our department’s Christmas party, which was held at a bar that’s underneath the Story Bridge.

We didn’t get “Sunny Queensland” while we were up in Brisbane. Instead, in rained almost the entire time we were there. Oh, and the temperature was 30 degrees C in the afternoon. *sigh*

Rainy day along the Brisbane River

Photo of a couple of restaurants built on a pier along an urban river. The restaurants are open to the outdoors and appear to be half full. Outside it is raining.

Rainwater falling from drainage pipes below the Story Bridge

Photo looking up at the underside of a large cantilever bridge. There are streams of rainwater pouring down from drainage pipes set at intervals along the span of the bridge.

Rainwater drainage underneath the Story Bridge

Photo looking up at the underside of a large cantilever bridge. There are streams of rainwater pouring down from drainage pipes set at intervals along the span of the bridge.

Rainy day in Brisbane underneath the Story Bridge

Photo looking up at the underside of a large cantilever bridge that spans an urban river. Visible against the dark underside of the bridge is the heavy rain that is falling.

Rainwater drainage pipe under the Story Bridge

Photo looking up at the underside of a large cantilever bridge. A stream of rainwater is pouring out of a drainage pipe set into one side of the bridge.

Rainy day to be ferrying up and down the Brisbane River

Photo of two ferries traveling up and down an urban river on a rainy day.

Lots of rain, even under the Story Bridge

Photo looking up at the underside of a large cantilever bridge that spans an urban river. Visible against the dark underside of the bridge is the heavy rain that is falling.

Ferries on the Brisbane River on a rainy day

Photo of two ferries traveling up and down an urban river on a rainy day.

Party boat on the Brisbane River on a rainy day

Photo of a party boat lit up with bright lights traveling down an urban river on a rainy day.

[Photo walk] Brisbane River

This second set of Brisbane photos is from when I walked along the banks of the Brisbane River.

The Prawnster and Princess Prawnster at the City Botanic Gardens RiverHub

Photo of two trawler boats moored next to each other at a pier on an urban river. The boats have been converted into seafood restaurants.

Kangaroo Point Bridge spanning the Brisbane River, a week before its official opening

Photo of a tall, white, single-mast, cable bridge for pedestrians and cyclists that spans an urban river.

Brisbane’s newest Bridge (Kangaroo Point Bridge) and one of its oldest (Story Bridge)

Wide-angle photo showing two bridges that span an urban river. The white, single-mast, cable bridge closer to the photographer is a pedestrian and cyclist bridge that will open a week after this photo was taken. A massive, grey, cantilever bridge can be seen in the background, below the deck of the nearer bridge.

Jetski training

Photo of a several jetskis on floating plastic parking pads that are attached to a pier on an urban river. An instructor standing on the pier is talking to his three students who are sitting on two of the jetskis.

Final touches on the Kangaroo Point Bridge before it opens next week

Photo of a worker in safety gear (white hard hat and bright orange high-visibility clothing) standing on a scissor lift on top of a white bridge that spans an urban river.

Good ideas start with great coffee!

Photo of an outdoor flight of stairs leading up to a cafe. Painted on the riser between the third and fourth step is a painted, bright red sign with white, all-capitals text that reads, “Be amazing today! But first, coffee!”. And painted on the riser below the 12th and 13th step is a painted black sign with white text that reads, “Good ideas start with great coffee!”

Be amazing today! But first, coffee!

Close-up photo of an outdoor flight of stairs. Painted on the riser between the third and fourth step is a painted, bright red sign with white, all-capitals text that reads, “Be amazing today! But first, coffee!”.

Construction crew on the river

Photo of two construction crew members in white hard hats and bright orange high-visibility gear on a small motorboat making their way around a large transport boat from which items are being lifted via a tall, overhead crane.

Brisbane River from my hotel room window at 7pm

Photo looking down from a tall building at an urban river on an overcast night. Across the street is the large Queensland Performing Arts Centre building complex, the outside of which is bathed in red and green lights. Two bridges cross the river, one of which has its underside bathed in green and blue lights. There are a few boats making their way along the river.

Brisbane River from my hotel room window at 6am

Photo looking down from a tall building at an urban river on a rainy, overcast early morning. Across the street is the large Queensland Performing Arts Centre building complex. Two bridges span the river and there are some boats parked along the riverbank. An elevated motorway runs along the near side of the river with light traffic on it.

[Photo walk] Brisbane CBD

At work this year’s annual department offsite and Christmas party was held in Brisbane. I flew up early on the day so I could walk around and take some photos.

This first set is from the Brisbane central business district (CBD) where our office is.

Big sign on a very thick pole on George Street

Photo of an overhead directional road sign in a city centre with several tall buildings and moderate traffic. The sign shows lane markings and directional arrows for Toowong (via Coronation Drive), Gold Coast (via Riverside Expressway), and Roma Street.

Bank of New South Wales building (now the Westpac Bank Building)

Photo of a six-storey, neo-classical, commercial building completed in 1930. The facade is constructed from brown coloured stone. The front has four giant Ionic columns above which is written, in all capital letters, ‘Bank of New South Wales’.

Carindale Express bus exits the underground busway at William Street

Photo looking downwards at a blue-and-yellow bus exiting a bus-only tunnel that runs below the Brisbane central business district. A digital sign on the front of the bus reads, “Carindale Express via Cannon Hill” and the 215 bus number.

Layers of transport options along the Brisbane River near North Quay

Photo showing multiple layers of roads and pedestrian walkways running along an urban river, including a motorway, elevated expressway, bikeway, and walkway.

Nice and peaceful in the City Botanic Gardens

Photo looking over a wooden bench facing a large public garden with several massive trees around it. The bench itself has been set under the shade of several large trees.

No need to run the sprinkler at the City Botanic Gardens when its been raining

Close-up photo of a plant irrigation sprinkler mounted on a pole that has several small cobwebs all around it.

Bush stone-curlews chilling at the City Botanic Gardens

Close-up photo showing two bush stone-curlew birds sitting on some brown mulch in a public garden.

Weeping Fig Avenue at the City Botanic Gardens

Photo of a long, wooden walkway with long wooden benches running along its entire length. On either side of the walkway are very tall weeping fig trees.

Selfie on Weeping Fig Avenue at the City Botanic Gardens

Selfie of a man standing a long, wooden walkway with long wooden benches running along its entire length. On either side of the walkway are very tall weeping fig trees. The man is bald and has a short, mostly-white beard. He is wearing glasses, a black t-shirt, and a backpack.

Selfie among the weeping figs at the City Botanic Gardens

Selfie of a man looking down at his phone. Above him is the canopy of several tall weeping fig trees. The man is bald and has a short, mostly-white beard. He is wearing glasses, a black Pac-Man t-shirt, and a backpack.

Gold Tower (originally AMP Centre) in the Brisbane central business district

Photo of a skyscraper with gold-tinted, floor-to-ceiling windows along the outside.

On and off ramps at the end of Ann Street in Brisbane

Photo of three three vehicle on and off ramps in an urban city center. One of the elevated ramps curves so that it emerges from and disappears into the right side of the photo.

Free bike parking under the Pacific Motorway on-ramp in Brisbane

Photo of several motorcyles parked underneath an on-ramp in a city centre.

Waiting in line for his coffee at Brisbane Quarter

Photo of a man wearing business casual clothes waiting in line at a cafe in a shopping centre. The photo is through a large cut-out of a higher floor.

Reflections of a photographer in a massive Christmas bauble at Brisbane Quarter

Photo of a large, golden Christmas bauble hung from the ceiling in the foyer of an office building. The photographer is standing on the street outside the building and you can see his dull reflection in the bauble.

Blurry text after installing latest Windows 11 release (24H2)

tl;dr If you have an NVIDIA graphics card and you have your graphics scaled to 100% in Windows, go to the NVIDIA Control Panel and change the ‘Display > Adjust Desktop Side and Position > Apply the following settings: > Scaling’ setting to ‘No scaling’. This fixed the blurry text/screen issue for me.

UPDATE: This fix doesn’t work 100% of the time. Occasionally the screen will get blurry again, but only when I’ve been away from my computer for a while and so the screen has turned itself off. When that happens, I have to go back to the scaling settings and toggle between ‘Aspect ratio’ and ‘No scaling’. Doing that resets the screen and fixes the blurry text issue. Hopefully the next Windows or NVIDIA driver update fixes this problem once and for all!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll have gathered that I am a typography enthusiast. So you can understand how pissed-off I was when I installed the latest Windows 11 release (24H2) on my gaming PC [1] and suddenly all the text on my screen got slightly blurry.

Blurry photo of what appears to be a large screen on a table, with a large desk lamp placed next to it. (Source: Matthias Oberholzer on Unsplash)

At first I thought this was a browser issue because that’s where I first noticed the problem. But then I realised text was blurry everywhere, including in Microsoft Word and even in Windows menus and panels. And then I noticed that the sharp edges of graphics and images were blurry too. In fact, everything looked a little less sharp! That mean this was a graphics/display issue, not a font rendering issue.

The obvious first step was to update all my Intel and NVIDIA drivers, which I did. But that didn’t fix anything.

Then I did a bunch of extensive online searches, but no luck there either. No one had this specific issue after updating their Windows installs and all the troubleshooting steps that folks recommended didn’t fix my problem.

So then I did what any proper tech geek would do: I started changing and resetting all my graphics settings :)

Screenshot from the TV show The IT Crowd in which actor Chris O’Dowd has picked up the phone and has immediately said, “Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?”.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

If you’ve been using software as complicated as Windows for long enough, you’ll know that things get missed or overwritten without warning – especially when hardware or software is being upgraded. So I figured either one of my settings got overwritten during the upgrade or the folks at Microsoft changed something in Windows that meant my current setting was no longer the correct one.

After toggling a bunch of display settings in Windows (scaling, resolution, etc), I moved onto the NVIDIA Control Panel and there’s where I found the answer.

In the ‘Display > Adjust Desktop Size and Position’ section you have the ability to scale and size your desktop.

The default setting for this is ‘Aspect ratio’.

But if your screen is scaled to 100% and you want every software-generated pixel to map to its corresponding hardware pixel on your monitor, you’re better off turning all scaling off. So that’s what I did.

I switched to ‘No scaling’ and my screen is now perfectly sharp, and all is right with the world :)

Screenshot from the NVIDIA Control Panel app on Windows. Two sections are highlighted. The first is a radio button that reads, “No scaling”. The second describes the typical usage scenario in which you apply this setting: “Your desktop appears blurry when scaled”.

Hope this helps you if you’re having the same problem I was!

[1] Intel 13th Gen CPU, NVIDIA RTX 4080 GPU, Windows 11 Pro

[Photo walk] Along Flinders Street #3

I took these photos on a quick walk along Flinders Lane and Flinders Street.

Clean your damn shoes

Photo of a glass-fronted store that’s named Sneaker Laundry. A neon sign on the window reads, in all capital letters, “clean your damn shoes”. A bright yellow sandwich board on the pavement outside the store reads, also in all capital letters, “slow down” and “clean your sneakers here”. A shop attendant on a laptop is visible through the storefront windows.

Be there in a Jiff

Photo of flat-bottom cargo skiff (a type of boat) named ‘Jiff’ being piloted along an urban river by a man with a neat beard and ponytail who is wearing a white t-shirt and sunglasses.

Chatting in the shade

Photo of a pedestrian bridge across an urban river. A walkway with a metal railing runs along the river and underneath this bridge. Directly underneath the bridge you can see the silhouette of a man leaning on the railing as he holds a phone up to his ear.

Boycott, Divest & Sanction, mate

Photo of a white sticker affixed to the top a dark green stairway banister. The reads, in large, all-caps text, “BSDM”. Below this is regular-sized text that reads, “Boycott, Divest & Sanction, mate” and the hashtag “free Palestine”.

Tower 2 at Collins Square, Melbourne

My office is in Tower 5 at Collins Square in Docklands, Melbourne.

At certain times of day, when the light is just right, the west-facing side of Tower 2 is really photogenic. (I’ve posted a photo of this before too.)

West side of Tower 2 at Collins Square

Photo looking down along the side of a tall office building with floor-to-ceiling windows. Visible through some of the windows are open office seating spaces and meeting rooms. The rest of the floors are obscured by reflections of the building opposite, which is out of frame of the photograph.

Collins Square Tower 2 on a bright, but overcast day in Melbourne

Photo looking down along the side of a tall office building with floor-to-ceiling windows. Visible through some of the windows are open office seating spaces and meeting rooms. The rest of the floors are obscured by reflections of the building opposite, which is out of frame of the photograph.