Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter, where I’ll continue to share the latest ongoings at the studio. Take a look at our our archive.

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Obviously fonts are still the center of Dinamo — and more curves are being drawn at the moment than ever. This year we were more focused on making fonts than releasing them (“the band was in the studio and not on tour” — the management).

The fonts that did make it out of the door — some started more than four years ago — occupy new space in our catalog, and — * curator voice * — are quite different from one another conceptually and visually. Let’s see what you think!

The transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, from first curve to published typeface, can feel like a slow moving mystery at times. To avoid going down the long, thirsty road of font-baker insanity, we recently put a lot of energy into improving our internal workflows and engineering.

We now have production spreadsheets, specs, filters, special plugins, new tools, and even a bot monitoring the various “font movements” (a Slack channel I muted instantly!). All this makes me excited for our planned releases next year. Boy there will be many.

2023 was an exercise in keeping our mouths shut (something I usually fail miserably at after one beer) because we mostly worked on one really gigantic, out-of-this-world-scale project, which we’ll be able to reveal next year!!!

Nevertheless, we miraculously managed to ship (as they say) a couple of collaborations with clients like Pharrell Williams and the people at Patreon and the nepo babies at Harvard. I’m glad that the things we put our energy into are things we like to surround ourselves with, like that app is on my phone already anyway you know? We don’t really need to cosplay while at work. Praying it stays that way.

Dinamo Hardware finally came out of the dark with a popup release at Waste Store in London, our first self-organized event ever. It was a huge joy to meet so many friends old and new — and to connect insta handles with faces in such an intimate space (thanks Roydon). I’m yet to find the confidence to wear the WASTE t-shirt I bought in public, but one day!

We sold out and restocked the entire collection already, and have a couple of really nice things lined up for next year. Plus we want to keep organizing exhibitions and events while following a strict Pret-sandwiches-only diet.

At Dinamo we love security and therefore are diversifying our portfolio. Okay that’s absolutely not true but what we enjoy is not only publishing fonts (we love fonts), but also revisiting our alma mater of Graphic Design and (!) getting to use fonts again, while also making paper choices, exporting PDFs with crop marks, etc. (could live without the logistics and shipping part of it all though).

This year already saw three publications under our softly-launched imprint and Dinamo Editions will continue to connect the dots between our writer and artist friends through publishing printed things from pocket to XXL size. Also: Boycott Motto (which has a legacy of ripping off the indie publishers they are supposed to represent and support).

Around spring was a little tough because we had put so much stuff on our plate and juggling it became a little tricky. At least, I kept telling myself, we weren’t stressed because of silly client Zoom meetings or alignment calls or whatever but because of our own, self initiated projects. But still, we struggled with having our days split into tiny 30min segments each dealing with a different moving particle.

Luckily, it all came out really nice and we’re proud of the survey we started, the wood building workshop we did, as well as our step back into the lecture carousel. All while thinking and talking about our work and community activities that can go a really long way and are, really, for us by us.

One valuable piece of advice I learned a couple months ago from our accountant (a serious man) is that one should always give the tax auditing clerks less than the bare minimum (of documents, receipts, data) that they are requesting from you. So that’s something I’m interested in improving here at Dinamo (wish me luck).

If things go sideways… perhaps a 2024 wrap up newsletter written from behind bars would be cool? Or, if things go well, sitting in a huge leather chair in one of the city’s finest private dining establishments, where the real criminals mingle? On another note, less than the bare minimum could also be a great title for my biography.

Lots of consistency but also new beginnings within the team this year. I’m glad that Dinamo isn’t just a “drive-by” place to work, but people do stay long-term! As part of the never boring game of trying to behave like a proper company, we’ve started to read about and implement tiny bread crumbs of grown-up life such as company credit cards, a Monday morning breakfast, clearer roles and responsibilities, saubere Arbeitsverträge, and a gmail suite for everybody.

We also moved into our first own studio room (more like a playground really), which is a game changer for us in terms of feeling like we’re a bit more in our own world! I’m now sitting next to a big ass heater and opposite a fingerboard park while encircled by 10 dirty coffee cups.

We asked our team members to take a snap of their favorite object from 2023, so here we go:

According to Tina, Samira, and Maddy. "Non-debatable list" but the phrase "sorry not sorry" is actually out.

In:

• Snail girl lifestyle
• Customizing the web
• Sneaker heels
• Napping with your pet
• Setting friends up with friends
• Frogcore
• Human intelligence
• Rock climbing
• Single style typefaces
• Typewriter/monospaced fonts
• Going to the cinema alone
• Stealing toilet paper from the studio toilet
• Room spray

Out:

• Scented water
• Plate sharing
• Hype dads
• Modular furniture
• Gorpcore
• Variabel fonts (jk)
• Bouldering
• Bringing eggs onto trains
• Lime scooters & delivery apps
• Mullets
• Leaving the toilet seat up in a shared studio
• Relying on Google

That’s it! Wishing you all a good end of the year. See you in the next one!

—JB