Twelve-year-old Selects His Favorite Tech and Design Picks of 2025

\ As 2025 is coming to a close, I decided I’d put together some of my favorite things from this year.

Fonts: I am obsessed with fonts, and love seeing new ones get brought into the world. All of the following fonts were released during 2025. A little sneak-peek for what’s to come: I interviewed a bunch of designers at niche type foundries earlier this year, and am thinking about maybe publishing a zine about it, so stay tuned, and if you know any type designers who’d like to be interviewed, feel free to shoot me an email.

• Swim Club, by Old City Mailroom. I love the versatility of this font. It comes in sans and slab, tall and wide, and textured and solid. While the sans looks like the kind of thing you’d see in an old beach town (hence the name), I could see the slab going pretty much anywhere.
• Print, by Faire Type. This family, based on copperplate script, evokes the feeling of an old book. Print Script, the cursive-inspired typeface, seems great in its display form for a standout portfolio, while I can see the regular Print becoming the next Instrument Serif (which I use for the heading of this newsletter).

Keyboards: Just a heads-up — I do not own any of these keyboards (although, once my newsletter takes off, maybe… ). However, I do follow the keyboard news very carefully, and a couple from this year really stood out to me.

• Cleaver, by Serene Industries. The successor to the Icebreaker, this keyboard continues the all-aluminum tradition. While the brutalist design language of the Icebreaker was… interesting, I wouldn’t say that it really spoke to me, with all of its sharp corners. However, the Cleaver embraces the minimalist nature that I would’ve wished for in the Icebreaker and it looks really cool. Probably not so great to type on though.
• Encore Series 3, by Mod Musings and Mode Designs. Interestingly, my keyboard preferences have changed from liking 100% to gravitating between 65% and 75% boards. The design language of the Encore has caught my eye for a long time, and while I slightly prefer the wood of Series 1 and 2, the brushed copper bottom of this batch looks really nice.

What I Read: I read a ton of different things, and thought I’d share some of my favorites.

• The Verge. This is my go-to for tech news and reviews. I feel like nearly every article I read is super high-quality and informative, and I can always trust their tech reviews to be useful and true — their ethics policy seems very, very important to them. It feels like most of the other tech news sites are owned by Future and are filled with clickbait-y articles and very little original content.
• Installer. This newsletter, written by David Pierce of The Verge, is one of my favorites (and the inspiration for this post). Every Saturday, I get the latest tech products (with commentary), a Q&A + home screen share of someone in the tech industry, and a crowd-sourced section, where people can write in/comment on social media with what they’re into that week. Highly recommended.
• Workspaces. A fellow Beehiiv publication, this newsletter delivers a desk setup and a Q&A with a tech/creative professional. While not the most writing-heavy, it’s still interesting to get a window into the life of a new person.
• Dense Discovery: Similar to Installer, this newsletter includes links to interesting things on the web, plus a section with art picks and a new font.
• Braise: Somewhat of an odd one for this list, Braise is not related to tech. Written by Dominic Preston of The Verge, it comes twice-weekly with London restaurant recommendations and recipes. I live in New York, but I still find it interesting, because I love reading about food, whether or not going there is in the equation.
• The Manual: This newsletter comes monthly, and is written by Oliur, a design influencer. It shares anecdotes about his career, plus a section (my favorite) at the end, with links to cool internet things. I mentioned Link Lowdown in a previous post, which is the website version of the (more curated) links section of this newsletter.
• clicks ‘n clacks: I linked to this newsletter in last week’s post — one of my favorites, it includes three interesting links (not the same ones as my previous picks, don’t worry!), and three new keyboards. Plus, it’s on Beehiiv just like me!
• Product Identity: I wrote an article for this publication in the spring about Deta Surf, a new web browser which recently went out of business. It talks about niche design and small startups and offers a fascinating perspective on the worlds of tech and design.

An Anti-Recommendation: At school, we play a lot of interactive quiz games in class to supposedly study for tests and the like. However, what I’ve found with the most popular one, Gimkit, is that it becomes so far removed from the content (in most of the game modes, you answer questions to earn energy in order to move around in the game) and the complicated, involved games heavily distract from the learning material. While the other kids in my class find it fun, and I don’t necessarily dislike playing it, it becomes less of a study tool and more of a game that is disguised as a study tool. I don’t think the games are bad — I just think the intention behind the games is confusing.

While I’m pretty sure I wrote the word “newsletter” about a hundred times, I do hope that my recommendations were as helpful as other yearly recaps!

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