Type Tasting

🎧 Weekend listening… Tickle your curiosity and feed your brain. My guests are brilliant. But don’t take it from me, take it from the people who listen. ⭐ “Fantastic” ⭐ “Delightful” ⭐ “Wonderful” ⭐ “Fascinating” ⭐ “Brilliant” ⭐ “Absolute joy” ⭐ Take your pick from the first seven episodes of the Seeing Senses podcast. Join my wonderful cross-industry guests (and me) to explore how what we see connects with memory, emotion and other senses through conversations. Our senses don’t work in silos, nor should we. Episode 01: Crossing senses with crossmodal pioneer Professor Charles Spence. Seeing senses: Sight, flavour and how expectation reshapes experience. Episode 02: Designing for laughs with Design Week editor Rob Alderson. Seeing humour: Timing, tension and the sensory surprise of laughter. Episode 03: Composing perfumes with 4160 TUESDAYS founder Sarah McCartney. Seeing scent: Sound, memory and the emotional power of perfume. Episode 04: Sonic strategy with pioneering audio alchemist Steve Keller. Seeing sound: Branding, emotion and sensory congruence. Episode 05: Exhibition curation with Wellcome Collection’s Janice Li. Designing beyond sight: Curation, memory and multi-sensory engagement. Episode 06: Immersive gastronomy with Kitchen Theory founder Chef Jozef Youssef. Seeing flavour: Sight, filet-o-jellyfish & the art of multisensory dining. Episode 07: Seeing sound & hearing fonts with AI music artist and TV broadcaster LJ Rich. Mixing senses: Synaesthesia, AI and the unexpected music of fonts. Listen to Seeing Senses wherever you get your podcasts /. This is a self-funded and self-initiated labour of love. I’ve learned how to interview, edit and layer the audio. I think of it like an audio version of the punk zines we used to make. I’d love some funding now, if anyone knows anybody. Subscribe to Seeing Senses on Substack for updates and sense-hacking extras /. #SeeingSensesPodcast #MultiSensoryThinking #Podcast #Reviews

Wow I’ve just looked at my last royalty statement and Why Fonts Matter has now sold over 35,600 copies. That’s boggled my mind a bit. When I first wrote it I was told a book about typography would never make it into royalties, so not to get my hopes up. Six years on and so many people have a copy of the book I wrote in six months of 15-hour days, regularly falling asleep at my keyboard. Huge thank you to everyone who bought the first self-published version (The Type Taster) and to Jamie Joseph my publishing editor at Ebury (Penguin/Random House). Time to make a cuppa to celebrate! . . . . #whyfontsmatter #sarahhyndman #authorsofinstagram #fonts #typography #book #publishing #author

“Can you taste design?” I had fun chatting about this with @itsnicethat ’s Olivia Hingley. “Eating is a multi-sensory experience, and the design surrounding food – from restaurant interiors to menu typefaces…” ”Since 2013, the designer, researcher and author of Why Fonts Matter Sarah Hyndman has been conducting experiments into how our eyes and other senses “sway our perception”. In particular, Sarah focuses on how typography influences and impacts our senses – she even coined a term for it: typosensory.” ”Sarah’s typosensory research is mainly compiled through mass participation experiences which she takes to conventions and talks across the UK, and sometimes conducts online. Past experiments have involved testing how the taste of a jelly bean changes when paired with a different font, or asking audience members to vote on what type of coffee they’d be ordering if they were just going off the font being used to present the word ‘coffee’ – the same with wine.“ Olivia also asked designer Jingqi Fan and restaurant writer Isaac Rangaswami. It’s fascinating to compare our answers. Words by Olivia Hingley Illustrations by @chi_meatrui /features/can-you-taste-design-graphic-design-300524 #multisensory #typosensory #taste #design #interview #itsnicethat

An alchemy of lanyards. Started making them today, quite a few more to go! The Sensologists present Alchemy Flux Innovation Lounge An evening of senses & technology 22nd May 2026 One week to go. This is sold out. There’s been so much interest that we’ll be doing it again. Sign up to The Sensologists on Substack for news of future events.

Gin + senses + violin Does taste just happen on the tongue? Or does flavour also come from our ears and eyes? Join us for a drink and find out whether a violin impacts what you taste. We’ll also have red/blue glasses for the audience to wear, bells and chimes to turn the front row into sonic seasoning, and story-enhancing bags of juniper berries to sniff. I’m on my way to the Isle of Wight for the @fairestislefest . I’ll be taking to the stage with violinist @jennaraggett.music for: Gin & Senses A sonic tasting experiment in three acts Huge thank you to festival founder Melissa Scott for inviting us to take part.

Meet the alchemists It’s the final countdown to a first-of-it’s-kind event happening on Friday 22nd of May. I run The Sensologists alongside Type Tasting. This is growing community of people from different industries who are interested in all things multi-sensory and crossmodal. Alchemy is taking place at the Flux Innovation Lounge in North Greenwich on the evening of Friday 22 May. Tickets have sold out, but there’s been so much interest that we plan to do it again in a few months. We have an incredible lineup of speakers and contributors. Here’s a quick taster… The Sensologists present Alchemy Flux Innovation Lounge An evening of senses & technology 22nd May 2026 Meet the alchemists Speakers and contributors Oriente Pimentel Aldaz LJ Rich Dr Jieling Xiou Thomas Sharp Stuart Fowkes Fru Bekefi Caroline Hobkinson Kimatica Studio Sarah Hyndman Thank you Venue hosts Rich Ward and Steve Blyth of Engage Works for inviting us into the Flux Innovation Lounge. And to Steve Squires for helping to organise the event. Read the speaker bios via the QR code or at /the-sensologists-alchemy-at-flux-speakers-and-contributors

Merch. Once a graphic designer always a designer. The lanyards are kiki/bouba themed. They’ll be randomly assigned to speakers and audience members. Will you be kiki or bouba? They’re designed to be a conversation starter on the night. The t-shirts are a bit of print-on-demand fun. If anybody wants one let me know and I’ll send you the link. Designing a t-shirt for anything I do is a reflex. It’s a nod to my first ever venture when I left school, which was to set up a t-shirt printing business in my living room. The Sensologists: Alchemy is happening on Friday 22nd May. Tickets have sold out, you can join the waiting list. If it goes well and there’s enough demand we’ll do it again in a few months time. Find out more by signing up to The Sensologists on substack. (Typefaces based on Ironwood by Joy Redick, and the aptly named Digestive by Jérémy Landes.)

Spot UV varnish 🥰 My new business cards arrived, I’m very chuffed with them. My previous cards were scented. I wanted the new ones to be tactile, with a ‘secret’ message that you’d want to touch ✨. When you see me in person I’ll give you one. Next time, noisy or edible cards?

“Stop hiring humans” This feels super dystopian in a residential neighbourhood in spring with birds and where people walk around all day. It’s outside the awesome local coffee shop (the barista says it haunts/stares at him all day.) It’s on the route we all take to the station to go to work each day. And on a phone box, a reminder of tech times gone by. If you’re in the area buy a coffee or food from @bakestreetldn . ❤️local.

Can the sound of a violin change the taste of your gin &/or tonic? This is a question we’ll be asking the audience at the Fairest Isle Festival in a week and a half on the Isle of Wight. Brilliant violinist @jennaraggett.music will be joining me in this unique and one-of-a-kind tasting experiment. We’ll be serving up gin and senses in three acts: Flavour, Fizz and Provenance. I’m also taking a box of bells and chimes so the audience can perform impromptu sonic flavouring. Gin and Senses, Saturday 16th May, @fairestislefest , Isle of Wight. What’s the most unusual tasting event you’ve been to?

Just now. I managed to leave it too late to go out in the sun. It was starting to rain. Bad timing, until I discovered that this was the first rain on a hot, sunny day. A time machine to memories gone by. On the hot London pavement it took me back to childhood and collecting wooden lolly sticks walking home from school towards the end of that long hot summer. The drops landing on the hot ground have a very distinctive aroma. It’s called petrichor. Compounds from the ground are trapped as tiny air bubbles when the first raindrops land. These bounce upwards and burst right under our noses, like bubbles of champagne. I created a prototype installation called Proustian Rain. Chatting to people I discovered that, while we all recognise the smell of petrichor, it’s different depending on where we are. For me this is pavement and tarmac. For someone else it’s rainforest vegetation. That made sense once I read that that the main compounds (geosmin and 2-MIB) get mixed with local elements. This makes the aroma distinctively recogniseable and different because the cocktail of elements varies from place to place. A smell that’s simultaneously universal and uniquely local.

"What a brilliant night!" When The Sensologists visited crossmodal perfumer Sarah McCartney. Huge thank you to Sarah for inviting us into her studio for a fascinating and fragrant evening. Those of you who came along please give her and Nick a .👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Our group for this visit included a learning designer, writer, communications consultant, CEO, human behaviour specialist, research strategist, food anthropologist, retail fashion tech founder, semiotician and a cultural futures expert. I curate events and audiences from different industries as an antidote to today’s culture of silos and seriousness. I believe sharing ideas and experiences across disciplines is a catalyst for new ways of thinking and working. From my notebook: • Having a large perfume collection is a good idea because smelling different things each day keeps your brain fit. • What did Elvis smell like? Graceland the fragrance approved by Priscilla, created for the immersive Elvis Evolution experience. • A £20K fragrance using 2018 ambergris tincture (whale poo) that began as an April Fool’s idea but is now going to be made for real. • Composing fragrances like music. Input = the materials. Output = the notes. Sarah explains this in more detail on the Seeing Senses podcast. • The accidental science-ish experiment with the fragrance (S)layer, created for the band Same. • Cure “first night syndrome” in a hotel by spraying your own perfume on the pillow. We also sniffed: the croissant perfume created for Lidl; Meet Me on the Corner inspired by a Lindisfarne song; Vianne’s Confession created for page 163 of Joanne Harris’ latest book; and “Skin” created for burlesque dancer Tempest Rose. I’ve come away with each scent stick tucked between pages of my notebook, so I smell each one as I turn the pages like an ephemeral aroma library. Head to the 4160 Tuesdays website to read the evocative stories behind each perfume. And the Scenthusiasm Scent School if you want to learn about making perfume. The Sensologists is a growing community of people from different worlds who are interested in all things multi-sensory and crossmodal. Find us on Substack to join in.