# Vellum > Notes on design, type, and the craft of making things. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About this site URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/about/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:33.000Z Vellum is an independent publication launched in July 2026 by Ines Marlowe. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this site possible, and allows Vellum to continue to exist. Thank you! ### Access all areas By signing up, you'll get access to the full archive of everything that's been published before and everything that's still to come. Your very own private library. ### Fresh content, delivered Stay up to date with new content sent straight to your inbox! No more worrying about whether you missed something because of a pesky algorithm or news feed. ### Meet people like you Join a community of other subscribers who share the same interests. --- ### Start your own thing Enjoying the experience? Get started for free and set up your very own subscription business using [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com), the same platform that powers this website. ### About URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/about-2/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z **Vellum** is a small journal about design and the craft of making things — typography, tools, interfaces, and the quiet decisions that separate good work from forgettable work. We are type-forward and opinionated. We believe constraints are a gift, that most things are improved by removing something, and that the best interface is the one you stop noticing. ## Posts ### The kerning is the message URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/the-kerning-is-the-message/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z Kerning is the space between individual letters, and caring about it is one of the surest signs that someone has crossed from using type into setting it. The amateur adjusts the font. The professional adjusts the gaps. Once you see bad kerning you cannot unsee it. I am sorry to have done this to you. ### Notes on naming things URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/notes-on-naming-things/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z A good name is a tiny act of design. It sets an expectation, draws a boundary, and tells you what belongs inside and what does not. A bad name quietly corrupts everything downstream of it. Spend the extra ten minutes. The name will outlive the code. ### Against the redesign URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/against-the-redesign/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z The redesign is the product team's version of buying a new outfit before a hard week. It feels like progress. It photographs well. It rarely touches the actual problem, which is usually not how the thing looks but what it does. Before you redesign, try the harder thing: fix the substance and leave the surface alone. If the substance is right, the surface will need less help than you think. ### The specimen: every element, set in Vellum URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/the-specimen/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z This article collects **every typographic element** the theme sets: headings, emphasis, [links](https://ghost.org/?ref=astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com), lists, quotes, code, tables and more. It doubles as a proofing page. ## Headings The post title is an `H1`. Inside the content, the hierarchy starts at `H2` and steps down from there. ### Third-level heading (H3) Body text under an H3, with **bold**, *italic*, ~~strikethrough~~, and inline emphasis in a single line. #### Fourth-level heading (H4) Another paragraph, to judge the leading and the vertical rhythm between consecutive blocks of text. ##### Fifth-level heading (H5) A paragraph after an H5. ###### Sixth-level heading (H6) A paragraph after an H6 — the last level of the hierarchy. ## Bulleted list - First item of the unordered list - Second item, deliberately long so you can see how the text behaves when it wraps onto more than one line within a single entry - Third item with a nested list: - Sub-item A - Sub-item B - Fourth and final item ## Numbered list 1. First step of the procedure 2. Second step, with nesting: 1. Numbered sub-step one 2. Numbered sub-step two 3. Third step ## Quotes > A single-block quote, for a line worth setting apart from the paragraph around it. And a longer, multi-paragraph quote with attribution: > Simplicity is not the absence of clutter; that is a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object. > > — Jonathan Ive, on design ## Code Inline code like `font-feature-settings`, and a block: ```css .prose { font-size: clamp(1.125rem, 1.05rem + 0.3vw, 1.25rem); line-height: 1.6; max-width: 65ch; } ``` ## Table | Element | Tag | Notes | | ------- | ---------- | ------------------------- | | Heading | h2 — h6 | Full hierarchy | | List | ul / ol | Nesting supported | | Quote | blockquote | Single or multi-paragraph | | Code | pre / code | Inline and block | ## Divider Above the rule. --- Below the rule — the end of the specimen. ### What good tools have in common URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/what-good-tools-have-in-common/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z I keep a mental list of tools I love, and it is a suspiciously varied list: a Japanese pull saw, a plain text editor, a twenty-year-old chef's knife. They have nothing in common except that they have everything in common. They are honest about what they do. They reward practice. And they get out of the way. That is the whole specification for a good tool, and almost nothing meets it. ### The typeface that fixed my writing URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/the-typeface-that-fixed-my-writing/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z I rewrote the same paragraph six times and hated it every time. Then I changed the typeface — for no good reason, just restlessness — and suddenly the sentence was fine. The words had not changed. Their clothes had. Typography is not decoration on top of writing. It is part of the reading, and therefore part of the writing. Set your draft in something you respect, and you will write to deserve it. ### In praise of the boring interface URL: https://astrix-vellum.adrianoamalfi.com/in-praise-of-the-boring-interface/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T18:13:40.000Z The most-used software in your life is almost certainly the most boring. The light switch. The elevator button. The humble text field. None of them are trying to delight you, and that is precisely why they work. ## Delight is a tax Every animation, every clever interaction, every moment of personality is a small tax on the user's attention. Sometimes it is worth paying. Usually it is not. The interface that respects you is the one that lets you forget it exists. ### The disappearing act Good tools have a disappearing act. You think about the sentence, not the keyboard; the destination, not the steering wheel. Software should aspire to the same invisibility. ## Boring is hard Making something boring in the right way is far harder than making it flashy. It requires knowing exactly what to leave out, and the confidence to leave it out. That confidence is the whole job.