This photograph records the entrance space at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, last week, where Robin Kinross gave a ‘conférence’ on the occasion of the publication of the French edition of Modern typography. He also took part in a recorded discussion for Radio France, to be broadcast at lunchtime on 28 May. Such serious attention in the public realm to typography is unusual. In the Anglo-Saxon world, it’s unheard of.

On the occasion of the publication of the French edition of Modern typography, Robin Kinross is speaking on the theme of ‘editing as design’ at ÉSAD Valence next Thursday, and at the Centre Pompidou on Friday.

Until now we have had a policy of not charging UK customers for the carriage of books and CDs bought from this website. But, on Monday, the Royal Mail is raising its charges markedly. Postage costs will represent an even larger proportion of a purchase – and we have decided now to introduce charges to cover our costs.

This is the cover of the pamphlet Fellow readers: notes on multiplied language, which Hyphen Press put out in 1994. The piece was prompted by the debates over typography that had been published in the pages of Emigre and Eye magazines, and elsewhere. A participant in this discussion, I saw the chance to make a more extended contribution when my book Modern typography was coming up for a reprint. This was in 1994, just as the wind was beginning to go out of this little Anglo-American storm. I gave the publication the format of Modern typography (in its first edition of 1992), using the same typeface, and page construction, and wrote to fill 32 pages – which would be just enough to give it a spine with the author and title on it. The margins carried quite a few notes: I was conscious that Modern typography’s margins had been underused. I imagined that the printers might make the book and the pamphlet in the same production process, which they almost did. Fellow readers seemed to serve its purpose. Though slender, as a free-standing publication it made more of a mark than any magazine article could.

Postings in this journal column have been light over the last few months. This is partly just because we’ve been busy. But it is partly due to having opened a Twitter account (@hyphenpress). We don’t put out much there either, but the fascination of Twitter has certainly taken up energy that might have been put into this column. Ideally one should tweet there and post here, and there are some remorseless bloggers who only tweet to announce their new blog posts. The more interesting course seems to be to use Twitter for light, quick messages with real content, and these blog or journal postings for more extended and longer, more lasting things. That’s what we will try for.

Copies of our fifth CD arrived in the office last week. This is a double CD, offering an extensive selection of pieces by the two composers, Johann Pachelbel and J.S. Bach. As always, The Bach Players put familiar works into less familiar contexts: two of Bach’s most splendid cantatas are placed alongside Pachelbel’s setting of the same texts. Pachelbel’s imperishable Canon is there, but so too is a fresh arrangement of the lesser known canons from Bach’s Goldberg Variations. We believe that these two CDs will have a greater resonance and effect than a single CD could.

Many apologies to anyone who has been trying to find this website in the last few days. Our provider had put it on a new server – with essential elements missing, and nothing showed. But now we’re back.

Our office is now closed for the Christmas and New Year holidays. Any orders made on the website will be gratefully received during this period – but the books/CDs cannot be posted to you until the first week of January. Greetings of the season!

David Wild recently wrote a brief note on the history of the collages that he has been making over 35 years. We give it here, with the examples to which he refers.

We have sold the last copy of Peter Burnhill’s book Type spaces. Our North American distributor, Princeton Architectural Press, still has some copies left.