Welcome to the blog!

It's basically a reverse chronological record of my bookmarks with the occasional release announcement. Not sure where to start? Here are some of my most active tags:

Trying something new with a newsletter

It’s almost 2025. Google Search is steadily getting worse. AI is flooding the web with dubious content and making it harder to know what’s even accurate. Social media is (mostly) for getting angry and discouraging links that might stop your scrolling. But, on a positive note, newsletters are all the rage.

So I’m jumping on that bandwagon! As everything gets harder to find (and since I don’t see webrings or blogrolls making a comeback), I want to highlight some of the tutorials, tools, podcast, books, and other content I find useful every month. Topics will be the same as here: programming, fonts, design, and tech in general.

Despite some overlap, this won’t replace posting here. I think longer posts like coding tutorials probably make less sense in a newsletter format. And I’ll keep doing font recs but hopefully with a little more motivation. Maybe if it’s not too hard, I’ll crosspost the whole thing here.

It also won’t replace my font release mailing list which goes out maybe twice a year (on a good year). If you’re interested, make sure to sign up for both.

I’m going to start collecting links for the end of January so sign up below and watch your inbox then!


Demo poster for Abhartach, a funky display font

This year has been busy and I've been a little distracted. But, with everything out in the world looking pretty bleak right now, it's nice to spend some time focusing on things that are... nice.

Abhartach is a funky font by Fontdation (seemingly also known as Twicolabs). It has a late sixties feel while also being modern. I also really love the sample images here. Free for demo use only.

Download a FontSpace or by at Creative Market.

Best 2024 Campaign Website Design

One thing I like to do when national politics have me spiraling into a panic (or, shockingly, when they have me feeling optimistic) is volunteer with Tech for Campaigns. If you have experience in engineering/product/design/etc. and want to help build websites or run email marketing for smaller campaigns, it's a great way to connect with talented, like-minded people and feel like you're actually helping.

As part of that, I've seen a lot of campaign websites this cycle. Sometimes the candidates recommend designs they like. Sometimes I'm out looking for inspiration. Since the content on these sites is generally very similar, it's interesting to see the different design approaches.

So, in no particular order, here's my partisan, totally subjective, and very non-exhaustive list of the best political website designs from 2024.

Elissa Slotkin for Michigan website screenshot

Elissa Slotkin for Michigan

Download full screenshot

This one is my favorite. Love the color palette, the background textures, and (most of all) the triangular decorative elements.

Lisa Blunt Rochester for U.S. Senate website screenshot

Lisa Blunt Rochester for U.S. Senate

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Nice use of background photos. The transitions in the issues and latest updates sections are worth visiting the site to check out.

Bryon Best For Congress website screenshot

Bryon Best For Congress

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A different approach to background photos that creates a very cool overflow effect.

Haley Stevens for Congress website screenshot

Haley Stevens for Congress

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The colors here pop and they've managed to create a really eye-catching layout just using overlapping rectangles.

Madeleine Dean for Congress website screenshot

Madeleine Dean for Congress

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A little more muted but everything about this site is so clean. The opaque design flourishes are subtle but keep things from feeling boring.

Josh Harder for Congress website screenshot

Josh Harder for Congress

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Mostly included for the timeline on the Josh's Story page but the homepage layout is good too.

Tanya for Congress TX 27 website screenshot

Tanya for Congress TX 27

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A lot to like here! The Texas flag as a book logo for a teacher, the ribbon/bookmark motif, and the angled backgrounds complementing both. It all flows together really nicely.

Sydney Kamlager – For Congress District 37 website screenshot

Sydney Kamlager – For Congress District 37

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Another example of an angled background pairing well with a logo.

Demo poster for Gremlin, a boxy outline font
I've recommended a couple TypeFactory fonts already but Gremlin is also a good one. It's a boxy outline font and free for personal use. My only complaint is that it was a little hard to look up by name because SEO really prefers the title font from the movie Gremlins.

Download at FontSpace or buy at Creative Fabrica.
My sister went to the Culinary Institute of America and I've watched every episode of Top Chef and yet somehow I'm just hearing about the big type wall they have there? And it looks amazing and has a name like Gastrotypographicalassemblage?! Very disappointed with the people and television shows in my life.
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Horseshoes & Lemonade Version 3!

Horseshoes Outline Font Poster

I made some changes to my most popular font! I'm not as fastidious when it comes to versioning fonts but 3.0 seems about right since this is the third major change to the family.

This update includes:

  • Adding a new Horseshoes Outline variation
  • Improving kerning on Horseshoes
  • Making minor tweaks to characters that felt a little awkward in Horseshoes and Horseshoes & Lemonade
  • Bundling up some bonus assets (retro seamless backgrounds and illustrations) in PSD, PNG, and SVG formats

Give it a try here and if you run into any issues, please let me know! And if you previously purchased a commercial license and would like a copy of the new commercial files, send me an email at lauren@laurenashpole.com.

Nature Impact font poster
First font download of the year! Nature Impact by 177 Studio is a really cool display font filled with outdoorsy illustrations. Not sure what I'll use it for yet but I wanted to have it just in case. Free for personal use/demo purposes.

Download at FontSpace or buy at Creative Fabrica.