When we were planning to publish music CDs, I tried to keep in mind that (since all the decisions were in our hands) it was a chance to think freshly and not – or not necessarily – use the reigning model of a plastic jewel case with printed ‘inlay’ sheet and booklet. I thought it would be good to try to do without plastic. It might cost a bit more money, but at least we could make a nice thing: more friendly than the jewel-case model, and perhaps more economic-elegant in its materials. This seemed important in the light of the burning question of ‘why make CDs anyway, why not just issue sound files for downloading?’ If you offer a pleasant and desirable thing, with material qualities that can never be downloaded, then it can be worth the effort and the cost of still publishing physical objects. The same set of thoughts applies, of course, to printed books and e-books.

A short report, with the introductory remarks by Robin Kinross and Eric Kindel, and Christopher Burke’s more substantial exposition of the making of our edition, can now be found on the ‘Isotype revisited’ website.

We get quite frequent enquiries about Typography papers: which issues are still available? how best to try to get hold of out-of-print numbers? contents of the back numbers? And, from subscription agencies: please send us the issue for 2010! We do our best to tell this last kind of enquirer that, from quite early on (after the third issue), Typography papers stopped trying for annual publication and adopted a ‘continuing but not annual’ approach: it would appear as and when enough good material had been gathered and the editorial-production group had the time and energy to bring it out.

On Thursday 20 January, thanks to the kind hospitality of the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, we are launching From hieroglyphics to Isotype. The ACF in Knightsbridge is a short walk away from the Victoria & Albert Museum, where, until 13 March, you can see the splendid exhibition Isotype: International Picture Language. This show makes an excellent introduction to Isotype; also a substantial one, illustrated and embodied in a good sample of material from the Isotype archive at the University of Reading.