A considered life, on paper
Indigo & Paper
Practical writing about paper, letters, journals and the machines that cut them — for people who have abandoned a planner before and would rather know why. Every guide begins with what actually happens on the desk, and a few of them end in something we made.
Start with the tracker that has no boxes — three months of it, free, and the page explaining why an empty box is a verdict.
Start with a good question
Twelve field notes
- Font Words, Plainly — Weld, Swash, Ligature, Counter, Kerning, Monoline
Six words that decide whether a font cuts. Each one defined by what goes wrong on the mat when you ignore it, not by what it means to a typographer.
- What to Write in a Letter
The blank page is not a shortage of things to say. It is the wrong question — and there is a better one that takes about four seconds to answer.
- What to Check Before You Buy a Digital Planner
Six things that decide whether a digital planner gets used past February, and five of them are visible in the listing before you pay.
- What Size Should a Digital Planner Be?
The answer is a ratio, not a size — and getting it wrong is why your planner has black bars down the sides.
- What a Craft Business Actually Costs to Run
The monthly figure almost nobody works out, and the reason a busy month can leave you with less than a quiet one.
- Why Vinyl Will Not Stick, by Surface
Wood, glass, plastic and painted surfaces each fail for a different reason, and the fix for one makes another worse.
- Transfer Tape — Which Tack, and Why It Fights You
Transfer tape has to grip harder than the mat and less than the surface. Every failure is that balance going wrong in one of two directions.
- What Paper to Use With a Fountain Pen
Everyone asks about gsm. It is the wrong number — and it explains why 80gsm paper can outperform 120gsm.
- Why Iron-On Vinyl Peels Off, and Which Variable to Change
Four variables make an HTV bond, and only one of them is heat. Most failed transfers are a pressure problem being treated as a temperature problem.
- How to Price What You Make
The formula is not the hard part. Putting your own time in it is, and that is the line almost everyone leaves out.
- How to Journal Without Quitting in Three Weeks
Most journals are abandoned in the first month, and for a reason that has nothing to do with willpower. Here is what actually keeps one going.
- How to Actually Use a Planner
If you keep buying planners and stopping in February, the problem is not discipline and it is not the planner. It is what you are putting in it.