Harry Keller

March 5, 2023

↬ February 2023

Hey y’all,
I haven’t had much headspace to think about this newsletter beforehand, so I’ll keep it brief. For me writing usually starts with mental preparation, mulling over what I want to say, distilling it, editing my thoughts, often days or even weeks before getting anything down on the page; but not this time, because unfortunately February was way too hectic: I’ve been working with the TypeMates on their new website + shop since October and we’re entering the final stretch of the project, getting it ready for launch. There are so many things yet to build, fix, improve and refine, it makes my head spin, but we’ll get there eventually! Even though it’s demanding, working with the TypeMates is also extremely rewarding and fun, you honestly couldn’t think of nicer or more dedicated people to team up with. I think I’ve said it before, but if you ever need custom type on a project, you know where to find them!

Despite the stress I’ve been roughly sticking to my usual working hours, but admittedly I’ve occasionally stretched them over five days and even into weekends, not always honoring the four-day work-week we have at Village One. I’m very much looking forward to a time when we can afford to grow the team and have one or two more front-end developers—as enjoyable as it is to build things quickly in a tiny team (my colleague Fei is doing an amazing job on everything back-end-related, while Doro juggles project work and internal topics), it’s not a sustainable situation over the long term. Anyhow, we’re adding a designer first, as Christoph also needs support. What’s cool: We have some new and promising project leads which are increasingly coming in through Mastodon. If you’re not on there yet, you should give it a try, it’s nice!

Speaking of social media, I haven’t checked Twitter even once in February and Instagram is just making me miserable with all its deceptive patterns to suck you into a stream of reels. Screw that, I’m still posting GameBoy Camera photos on Pixelfed every day. 🫠

What else? My girlfriend and I spent a weekend at the Baltic Sea, went on many forest walks with Freddy, watched White Lotus and Bad Sisters, and I planted some chili seeds (again).

Just remembered: I have yet to finish Goodbye, Again for the book club on Tuesday, so yeah, bye, I gotta run! I hope your days aren’t as busy and you had a good start into March! The leaves will be back soon and then things will calm down. 🌱

Take care and see you next month!
Harry

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Harry Keller | harryfk.com
Berliner, works at Village One
Writing a newsletter, running a book club
Elsewhere: Mastodon | Pixelfed | Twitter

About Harry Keller

Heya, I’m Harry, a software developer in Berlin/Germany—he/him, *351ppm, feminist, cooperativist, dogfather. I recently co-founded the somewhat utopian design+tech cooperative Village One and also diesdas.digital before that. You can learn more about me on harryfk.com and we can connect on Mastodon, Twitter, BeReal, PixelfedInstagram. Or you can simply read my newsletter below! 💁