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Simon Davies

@simonfd.bsky.social

1.7K followers 480 following 740 posts

Publishing Manager, @themhra.bsky.social Co-editor of the MHRA Style Guide Posting about scholarly publishing • History and future of the book • Book design, typography, typesetting 📚 Also work on the history of witchcraft & magic 🌒 • Views here my own

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 5h

Startlingly modern borders in this Caslon type specimen from 1785. I'd love to know if these were ever actually used in any books.
#bookdesign #typography
Source: archive.org/details/spec...

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 7h

'AI' is a real disaster for the Web. This is a good piece outlining the crawling problem, which should be more widely known.
But sure, tell me how there are actually valid uses for it, people who attack AI do more harm than good, blah blah blah
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/07/g...

Guest Post - “Have You Proved You’re Human Today?” Open Content and Web Harvesting in the AI Era - The Scholarly Kitchen

AI web harvesting bots are different from traditional web crawlers and violate many of the established rules and practices in place. Their rapidly expanding use is emerging as a significant IT managem...

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 1d

Love it!

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 1d

Only 926 comments on these proofs to check through today – should be easy enough, right?! 📑📑📑

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 3d

When you’ve bought a really nice set of woodcut initials and you just want to use them at every opportunity
(Florence, 1481)
#bookdesign #typography

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 4d

Who needs notepaper?

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 5d

When you really want people to know who it was that designed the title-page decorations
(1540)

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 5d

Happy Satan with similarly happy crotch-critter (1561) 😊

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 5d

A couple of wild C16th As for Friday afternoon
#bookdesign #typography

Reposted by Simon Davies

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 5d

"We live at a time of considerable uncertainty and peril. We believe this future will be easier (if never easy) to navigate with recourse to the skills and temperaments integral to a historical approach to life."

RHS President, Lucy Noakes, writes on the Society's blog bit.ly/3KBX7Fw #Skystorians

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

I know the feeling 🥲

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

It would include some practical printing press/typesetting experience!

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

Why not edit them yourself!

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

Need those initials!

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

Beautifully crisp textura (Paris, 1544)
Freshly cast type, good ink, good presswork
#typography #type

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 7d

Apologies, I didn’t reply to this. Happy to send you a copy, send me a DM 🙂

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 7d

We’ve all had days like this eh

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 7d

A beautifully printed early sixteenth-century (1526) Roman de La Rose
#bookdesign #typography #bookhistory

archive.org/details/cyes...

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 10d

lithub.com/heres-a-hand...

Here’s a handy guide to help you spot AI writing.

Source image from Wikimedia Foundation It’s always a bit surprising to me how trusted Wikipedia has become, since I spent my entire childhood being told by adults to never, ever, trust it. But the …

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 11d

More Arrighi (I think). We could publish books that looked like this today if we wanted to 💁‍♂️

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 11d

Ludovico Arrighi, Venice, 1529
#bookdesign #typography

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 12d

'“95 percent of organizations are getting zero return” on their AI bets' - no, really?
(How can they report statements like that & in the same breath uncritically state that 'the AI industry keeps booming'? Terrible journalism)
gizmodo.com/workslop-ai-...

'Workslop': AI-Generated Work Content Is Slowing Everything Down

AI slop has infiltrated the workplace, costing companies time and money.

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 12d

Let’s stop it before it goes through this time, like we didn’t do with the online age verification law

Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 12d

If you are concerned about how your data might be hacked, abused or sold, and more generally about unecessary digital surveillance, sign the petition.

[Let's not even both talking about the fact you will need a smartphone in order to have one of these].

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards

We demand that the UK Government immediately commits to not introducing a digital ID cards. There are reports that this is being looked at.

petition.parliament.uk

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 12d

youtu.be/GhHqxBuwpjc

Expert Explains Why, Essentially, You’re Fucked

YouTube video by The Onion

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 12d

A good piece on EUDR from @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social that lays out the madness of it. Heart’s in the right place, but it just doesn’t work as applied to books, and does more harm than good. We will likely have to just stop selling our books in the EU.
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/09/25/g...

Guest Post — If a Tree Falls with Nobody Around to Record its Exact Location, Was it Even Compliant? - The Scholarly Kitchen

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) could make millions of books illegal in Europe, forcing publishers to pulp stock and raising costs for readers.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org