Good as Gold
TL;DR I migrated and reworked this website's backend and launched a new Gold membership tier for people like you.
I started writing on the web over 25 years ago. For a while, it was frequent. Perhaps too frequent. And, at times, cringe-worthy. I wasn't alone of course. Those early blogging days were a result of this brand new medium emerging and throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
Writing on the web led to writing on paper, in books mostly about web design. Then I took a break and started some companies and social media took off and I stopped writing on the web, regularly. I started back in earnest with a hand-coded Jekyll install here about 10 years ago. A few sporadic posts, but nothing consistent.
These days, I write a weekly newsletter, and I really enjoy the routine. And I'll continue to do that! I was getting really frustrated writing the newsletter and then duplicating all that content in my hand-coded Jekyll site. On top of that, my Simple Type Club offering was a duct-taped membership solution tacked on top of Shopify (where my font foundry and goods shop lives). It was arduous to communicate with club members by email, maintaining multiple lists, subscription status, etc. with the house-of-cards system I had assembled.
A Ghost Appears
Then, on a random Friday, I decided to give Ghost a whirl. At first glance, it promised to solve most of my publishing/membership woes in one, tidy package that I could own and control. And so, I began setting up a local install of Ghost and started customizing anything and everything to match the current shop site. It was a mountain of work, but in the end having everything non-commerce related under one roof—including newsletter subscriptions was well worth it.
The beauty of Ghost, is that it handles membership tiers, web and email publishing in a really elegant way. I feel much more in control of the operation. Plus, Ghost is an open source non-profit that makes me feel better about sinking some serious investment of time, effort, and trust. I also really enjoy the writing experience in Ghost. I'm hoping the reduced publishing friction will lead to more...well, publishing. Classic blog redesign optimism ;-)
You're Golden
As I was customizing Ghost, I decided to augment what I was already doing with the Secret Type Club, creating a new membership tier that replaces it (but still includes it!). Today, I'm announcing SimpleBits® Gold. It's an annual membership that will help support this tiny company, while at the same time bundling up some arguably-compelling perks for you, the beloved member.
From the new Gold page on the site:
Hey, I'm Dan. I love the work I'm doing these days: Making imperfect fonts, putting those imperfect fonts on carefully-considered goods, writing an occasional book, DIY letterpressing, and other tinkering. It's a dream job, really. And I'd love to continue to find ways to keep it. I'm offering an annual Gold membership to give fine folks like you extra perks while at the same time supporting this independent, tiny type foundry and workshop of all things Danmade™.
So, what does a Gold member get? Well, I'm really glad you asked.
Secret Type Club Slack 💬
Access to our dedicated, private Slack channel for Gold members only. A safe place to secretly chat all things type & design. Share your work and inspiration, get feedback, see work-in-progress.
FREE Pre-Release Fonts 🎟️
We'll share WIP fonts as we make them, and share fully-licensed versions to Gold members through our Secret Type Club Slack channel as well as email.
40% OFF Fonts🏷️
Buy a few fonts from our growing, imperfect type foundry and Gold just about pays for itself ;-) Our entire catalog is 40% off while you're a Gold member.
25% OFF Goods🏷️
25% off all orders from our goods collection of type and design-related tees, mugs, stickers, patches, prints, books, etc. while you're a Gold member.
Bonus Content ✨
Gold members have access to exclusive bonus content. We'll share to logged-in Gold members in the Notebook as well as via email. This will be new territory for me, and I'm excited to write and share more. Topic suggestions very much welcomed!
Occasional Secret Meetups 🤐
We'll have (hopefuly) quarterly virtual meetups of our Secret Type Club to show and tell type and design things. We're holding one this Friday afternoon, where I've prompted members to bring a favorite font to share and talk about.
Onward & Upward
Like everything I make, it's a work in progress. And I'd love any feedback or suggestions you might have. For those that choose to Go Gold—a sincere thank you for helping me keep my job around here. It means an awful lot, especially in these insane times.
Now it's time to get back to making letters and numbers and goods and talking about them and seeing how this all evolves.
