There is a new section on the site called the “workbench.” Ellmer Stefan and his design practice known as The Pyte Foundry has been a long time inspiration of mine, and I unashamedly stole the name from him. The goal of the workbench is to have a place to document in progress fonts, scrapped ideas, research, helpful links, and maybe more. It is a bit of a catchall for the type of content I would share on social media.
While Morning Type will continue to use social media, the workbench will be the most up to date and tend to feature exclusive content. This is a small way of encouraging you to reclaim your feeds, and prioritizing your independence over the ads and algorithms of conventional social platforms. If that sounds appealing to you, then you can “follow” a variety of feeds via RSS.
Admittedly, I missed the golden age of RSS. Perhaps I was too young or maybe I was just too busy on skateboarding forums. Either way I missed the Google Reader boat. Nonetheless, I am now an RSS advocate and fully on board. But what exactly is RSS? It’s a way of following content on the web. More specifically, they are contents of a site served up as XML data — I like to describe it as platform agnostic feeds.
On Instagram, you can only follow other Instagram accounts. On Twitter, you can only follow other Twitter accounts. But imagine you could follow someone’s content not only across platforms but also across the web? Take Fonts In Use for example. Yes, you can follow their Instagram or their Twitter, but they also have a variety of RSS feeds which allow you to follow all uses, staff picks, just comments, or only the blog.
If you aren’t sure how to use RSS, then I suggest simply searching “How to use RSS” through your preferred search engine. I will eventually write in more detail about how I use RSS, but that will have to come at a later time. In case it helps you get started, the short of it is: copy an RSS link and paste it into your preferred RSS reader. I personally use NetNewsWire because I like how it is designed and it comes as a desktop app, but Feedly is a commonly used web option.
RSS links are typically found at <url.com>/feed, but this isn’t always the case. So I typically start by checking the footer of a site to see if they have RSS listed.
While most sites no longer offer RSS because they lack analytics and social metrics, Morning Type is aiming to offer more feeds! You can visit /rss to get an overview of what feeds are available.
I personally prefer being able to subscribe to very specific types of content, so I segment out each of the feeds. You can follow everything which will include any RSS feed I add to the site over time, or you can specifically follow new article releases, font releases, log updates, or workbench posts.
If you’re interested in following more type related accounts, I posted about it on Twitter and got a few responses. While this isn’t currently helpful, I am working on an update to the Type Foundry Directory that will include links to RSS feeds.
If you’re a type foundry or run a type related website that offers an RSS feed, let me know! If you’re a type foundry wondering how you can add RSS to your site, feel free to get in touch. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able help, but I’ll certainly try.
Return to the log←