Is Finishing Fonts a Lie? Lessons from a Production Sprint
The category is: dance or die. Or in my case, bézier or bust!
This January, I blocked my schedule for an entire semester with one goal: wrap up some fonts. When I say “blocked”, I am serious—even if that implied turning down paid work. Bold, perhaps reckless. No wonder I called it “plano ousado”, a deliberate high-stakes experiment designed to stretch capability and compress timelines. A catalyst to test my systems and reveal my limits. It was decided, 2025 would be the year of execution.
As a recent self-diagnosed time optimist, I was certain I could get two or three families done by August. How difficult can that be? Lygia is just missing small caps, fractions, and arrows. ZC Casual has hundreds of drawn glyphs, it’s mostly about polishing and cohesion across the designspace. Or maybe I’d kick off with Hanae since italics are sketched. So, I listed what each typeface required, item by item, and in what seemed like a smart move, chose to start on Lygia Sans.
Two weeks in, reality hit. Color issues, a half-baked Thin master, Cyrillics before extended Latin. The sheer amount of things to clean up and organize... it was the perfect picture of a project built across different eras. What was supposed to be linear progress became a slow unpicking of knots. Still, I could only think, “You have to deal with your old stuff! You can’t move forward without facing your demons.”
You’d expect fonts, like books or films, have a tangible endpoint, but type design doesn’t follow that logic, not for most people I know. There’s always a curve you swear can be smoother, a glyph to be added, an axis that suddenly feels essential. You don’t finish a font so much as you decide to stop. That decision rarely comes down to perfection, more to priorities, timing, and the story you’re ready to tell.
Knowing how obsessive I can be, I needed a system to force that principle into practice. Luckily, I knew exactly who to approach. Troy Leinster, a master of breaking down complex workflows into smaller but compounding blocks that foster precision without overwhelm. The rule was simple: if neither of us spotted a problem, we moved on. No overthinking, no nitpicking. But beyond technical advice, meeting Troy every Tuesday forced me to be consistent and accountable. We would also regularly make time to exchange doubts and learnings about developing our independent practices—somehow recreating an established foundry environment I never had the privilege of experiencing directly. Clearly, a strategic collaboration that accelerated progress.
I really wish I’d used the quieter years to sort through this chaos, which probably contributed to my initial tunnel vision—intoxicated by the idea of making up for lost ground and the excitement of finally giving my library the attention it deserves. Seven hours straight in front of the screen became routine… until one afternoon exhaustion hit like a wall. Head pounding, a stabbing pain in the arm, neck stiff and cracking. My body was staging a revolt, begging for recalibration. Slowing down, breathing, instead of plowing through like a maniac. By March, I learned to trust that “good enough” is sometimes the bravest call you can make.
The ability to push through frustration consistently is such an underrated skill, perhaps the ultimate advantage. It’s so hard to stay immersed in a single project when there’s no discovery left, only production. My mind constantly wandered, looking for excitement or new puzzles, when the actual challenge was staring at the same outlines over and over again. Discipline isn’t sexy, yet you can add an element of pleasure to soften it—life can’t be just a grind. It’s about hacking the psychological burden of sustained focus by splitting tasks into small wins. Or the nerdiest solution of all: using GitHub’s contribution grid to gamify the process. Those green squares illustrating my daily commits were weirdly addictive. The key insight: discomfort is data, showing precisely where my growth edge lived.
Here’s another uncomfortable truth: the longer a project sits “almost done”, the heavier it gets. Files age, technology changes, your eyes get sharper. A small fix can balloon into months of work, and momentum slips away. What feels urgent one year can look outdated the next, as Christian Schwartz puts it, “Type is in many ways a fashion business, and if you are off with your timing, something that would have been relevant one moment is no longer relevant in the same way.” That’s why “finishing” isn’t a clean line, it’s a moving target. Fonts can always evolve through updates and redesigns, but being intentional with deadlines ensures their value.
Confronting this reality and the state of my backlog head-on was what the plano ousado forced me to do. Sure, obsession drives output, but only structure protects your sanity. How many families did I complete? Zero. Instead, I uncovered a powerful toolbox for designing the business that sustains them. Because running a foundry is more than drawing letters—it’s strategy, positioning, knowing how to read contracts, and choosing collaborators wisely. Production is only part of the picture, otherwise you’re feeding a romantic idea. Six months later, the takeaways are brutal and simple:
1. Reframe resistance. Friction can reveal your next breakthrough.
2. Build in rewards. Pure discipline is a recipe for burnout—celebrate progress.
3. Accountability is leverage. Regular check-ins keep you moving when willpower fails.
4. Systems over speed. Solid workflows save time and outlast sprints.
5. Talent is everything. The right people expand horizons.
6. Timing is power. Hitting market windows matters as much as ensuring quality.
7. Courage compounds. Facing past failures opens room for better choices.
I was curious about what kind of Flavia would emerge from this vortex, and I can confidently say one who knows the real test lies in building the mental, emotional, and operational infrastructure to support meaningful work. Updates and new releases are inevitable, but sustainable creative freedom isn’t. That’s my focus now. It’s time to cast my spell on the night.
Marginalia
🔤 Font:
Method by TienMin Liao (Typeji): A geometric sans that proves systematic doesn’t mean soulless. Inspired by Lining Gothic No.82, it features distinctive high-waisted proportions and straight-cut terminals in a versatile design.
💬 Quote:
“It’s not talent that’s going to put you center stage. It’s audacity and nerve.”
— Doechii
🔖 Bookmarked:
Ideation to Publication—My Type Design Process by Troy Leinster: Essential viewing for anyone struggling with production bottlenecks.
🧑🎨 From the Field:
Beyond Bézier: What happens if you explore drawing with no outlines? Kai Bernau’s Stroke Scribbler (a RoboFont extension that simulates Noordzij’s sketching technique) is only one of the answers to this provocative research.
📡 Elsewhere:
DOAC Podcast x Robert Greene: On mastery, focus, and the silent tactics of influence. Greene is an absolute genius, but if you don’t have ~3h, jump to his notes on golden skills for today’s world and the different kinds of intelligence.
thanks for sharing. it's a timely read as I sit looking at wrapping up an unfinished font family for the past year or two.