Typewriter interview with Kelli Anderson

On paper, typography, bicycles, cats, and other wonderful things

Dec 17, 2024

∙ Paid

Hey y’all,

Kelli Anderson is a brilliant designer and the author of several wonderful books, including This Book is a Planetarium, an all-ages pop-up book that sold more than a 100,000 copies. She recently raised almost a quarter of a million dollars on Kickstarter to self-publish her forthcoming book, Alphabet in Motion. This interview was conducted via our typewriters and the United States Postal Service:

When did you first fall in love with the possibilities of paper? What is it about the material that calls to you? The thing I like best about paper is that we expect nothing of it. It can subvert this complacency by doing literally anything (animating, floating on air, diverting sound waves, calculating math) and disrupt our days with an awe that requires that we recalibrate our expectations (it says "more is possible here." which is all we want and needs as humans.)

I'm a big fan of "silly rituals." (I "smoke" a cigarette pencil when I'm writing.) What's the most embarrassing thing you do when you're working? I fully believe that if I'm sitting on the sofa with a laptop that it isn't work. It is *physically impossible* for it to be work if more than one pillow is implicated.

Do you see yourself as part of an artistic lineage? Who is in your creative family tree? BRUNO MUNARI. I also really like the work of ron resch, johanna trucker (diagrammatic writing, tuba Auerbach, and David reinsert)

Tell us about your new book. It is an interactive pop-up book called "Alphabet in Motion" about typography. It is specifically about how different lettering styles came to exist. Art history teaches us that civilization is embedded in objects--that if we look closely enough, we can witness artists in conversation with their time. Type is like this too! (There is a reason why the same type style shows up on the dashboard of a spaceship in every sci-fi movie However, unlike paint or clay, few of us have played-with a photo-typesetting machine. There is a gap in our experience and understanding. This book closes that gap so people can read culture in type...

what do you do for exercise? Do you detect any emotional, spiritual, or creative benefits? I have biked everywhere i need to go in NYC for the past 15 years (even the airport.) It helps me stay oriented and aware of the architecture, people, stores, parks, music, and culture of the different neighborhoods.

Describe a perfect day in Brooklyn. I manage to post a new animation before 7am, head to the coffeeshop and run into David or Wiena, leave to meet Dan or Keegan at the arm where, invariably, Yto or Richard will be there editioning prints. I gather Jeremy and we bike allll the way down Bedford Avenue: past the Polish pierogi joints, past the new development nightmaremall of Williamsburg (where i live), past the orthodox neighborhood where everyone dresses like it is 1824 ---through Crown Heights and the enormo unus chunks of houses in Midwood... just passingthrough a million different times and places, it seems, to the russian neighborhood, and then the ocean.

John Waters says he has "youth spies"- that keep him informed on contemporary culture -- do you have any "youth spies?" To be honest, I think there is a youth spy inside of every designer (go ahead an shake a designer- you'll hear it rolling around in there, we're like Kinder Eggs. )

Do you have any hobbies? (The sillier or more trivial, the better, IMo.) Do you collect anything? A rt, books, coffee, food (so predictable, I'm so sorry!) When I grow old, my hobby will be to maintain a solid hedge maze.

What's your relationship to music? Do you play an instrument? Sing? Is there a song you can't stop listening to? There are periods of my life where I passionately pursue music (always as a listener, never a performer) and sometimes where 1 float on autopilot. The former periods are where I do my best work. Today I listaned to Bowie's "Modern Love" six times in a row and then Tronics "TV on in Bed" three times in a row. I could not tell you why!

What is it about cats? They're funny because they aren't fully domesticated* so everything is just a little bit 'off' with them. *and neither are we?

Thank you, Kelli! Follow her on Instagram for updates @kellianderson and check out her quarterly mail club.

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