Just another day in keyboard research land!
(Art direction and photo by @neobarnabas.)pic.twitter.com/WOwspoQuWQ
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A portrait of a person slowly losing their mind in the infinite number of typesetting details.pic.twitter.com/4jAJM91Svc
Four years ago, I wrote a Medium post about the Turkish typewriter. I wonder if without that post – and the positive reception to it – I would’ve ever embarked on my book project. I’m taking photos of that typewriter for the book today, and it feels like meeting a patron saint.pic.twitter.com/TsNRoBRYX1
My newsletter is at 992 subscribers now – so close to 1,000!!! (Please sign up for fun keyboard stories, updates on book production, previews, and be the first to know when the book is ready!)https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/ …
It’s been hard to read other books for a while now. As I read, my mind keeps going to either “ah, this is nice, will people be so engrossed in my book?” or “this is so much better than what I’ve done.”
Then, I keep pausing to write down new ideas, or places to rewrite, or turns of phrases to steal.
And even without any of the above, I keep noticing typographical or typesetting details, and wondering about those, too.
(For example, I am trying to read “A burglar’s guide to the city” and just spent 5 minutes wondering whether these decorative paragraph breaks were cute or not, as my eyes blindly followed sentences without my brain registering anything.)pic.twitter.com/IenJVeJlm3
Always happy when I can take what seem like an unsalvageable photo, and through the magic of Lightroom and Photoshop turn it into an okay one.pic.twitter.com/NzAIEc5LJq
Spent most of today photographing keyboards from @keyboardio’s collection. (For the book.)
After I was done, I realized I photographed 56 (!) keyboards.pic.twitter.com/T2xY9dW8rA
Also, sometimes the best part of the keyboard is its connector.pic.twitter.com/IOWwP5BoAD
Fun fact: Each keyboard received, on average, 670 megapixels.
I woke up early to visit a faraway library before work, and scan one particular photo for the book. I grabbed the volume, and it opened at the exact very page that had the photo I wanted.
pic.twitter.com/sQmw1GAud5
As much as I love words and writing, taking a nice photo of an important artifact brings me as much joy. This is today’s book-bound photo of quite possibly the best keyboard ever made.pic.twitter.com/evkXIypmuO
I keep coming back to this photo: four generations of people in awe of the Space Cadet keyboard (I’m assuming for very different reasons). Knowing what seem like more impressive keyboards, I don’t fully understand the enduring appeal of Space Cadet… but it’s undeniable.pic.twitter.com/LKgYDGsm9P
In following another thread, I found an excellent photo of an overlay on top of a keyboard – among the best I’ve ever seen. I got really excited and immediately wanted to contact the photographer. Then I realized *I* took this photo, thirteen years ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2276490226/ …pic.twitter.com/sqQYw3mtbt
Can you afford to miss this week’s newsletter and learn what on the earth is this supposed to be? That’s right, I didn’t think so. Sign up here if you haven’t already! https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/ …pic.twitter.com/S7JwUW1y4h
Today my worlds collided – historical research for the book was helpful in figuring out a weird bug at work: pressing Shift+numpad 2 wasn’t working on Windows.pic.twitter.com/IFNB8KYk6m
(Hilariously, the person I was referring to complained that this secret feature was already poorly understood and documented by mid-1980s. And here were are in very, very late 2010s, and it’s still rearing its ugly head.)
The glamour of book writing: endless days on your couch cleaning up images in Photoshop while rewatching TV + cleaning a gross typewriter to prepare for a photo… in your bed, because you ran out of floor space.pic.twitter.com/vE01VnkGtl
Also, somehow there is also a vintage BlackBerry in my bed! I have no recollection of this.
Compiling a list of acknowledgements for my book and getting… unexpectedly emotional? So many great people who’ve generously helped me, and on so many levels, too. Thank you.
(I know I haven’t updated this thread in a while, but I’ve been spending last many months working on the visual side of the book. It’s hard to talk about it and not show anything – but showing things would be spoiling things!
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