# Index
2026

Field Office Quarterly · Volume IV
A field report on the state of things.
issue.04
spring 2026
field-office.co
Edited by
Field Office Editorial · Lin Ito & Anya Mehrotra
Distributed
To subscribers & the open web · twice a year
01 / 08

A trend is a quiet question that several rooms started asking at roughly the same time.

From the editor's note
Index 2026 · opening pages
02 / 08
The index, in six entries.
Spring 2026 · selected trends
01.

### Slow software

Tools that opt out of the urgency contest and instead promise to be quiet, considered, and on by default.

02.

### Domestic interfaces

Screens designed to live in living rooms — softer typography, warmer colour, and a willingness to be ignored.

03.

### Hand-set print again

A return to letterpress, risograph, and small-edition print, often paired with the most digital-feeling clients.

04.

### Quietly weird type

Display type with one slightly off detail — a tilted ear, a long tail — that keeps a reader looking twice.

05.

### Receipts and ledgers

Information designed to be filed, not consumed. Tabular layouts, dotted leaders, the page returning the favour.

06.

### Public weather

Brand and product writing that includes the actual weather of the day, the mood of the team, the unfinished thought.

03 / 08
Chapter one — the case for slow software

## Software is a room, and rooms are designed to be lived in slowly.

In its first chapter the Index follows the studios, products, and quiet middleware projects that are walking back the urgency the last decade trained us into. Less push. More return. The tools that do not page you, on principle, are the ones we have chosen to read first.

04 / 08
Reader response, by quarter.
Newsletter opens · 2024 Q1 — 2026 Q1
82%
Open rate · Q1 2026
A 2.1× lift on the inaugural issue, driven mostly by long-form chapters being read on Sunday mornings.
11k
Active subscribers
Quiet, mostly-not-on-social, paying readers; we do not run a referral programme.
Q1 24
Q2 24
Q3 24
Q4 24
Q1 25
Q2 25
Q4 25
Q1 26
05 / 08
A note from the studio

"We started the bulletin because the loudest readings of design were eating the ones we found ourselves rereading."

Lin Ito
Editor · Field Office Quarterly · letter to subscribers, March 2025
06 / 08
Trend ledger, in long.
All ten · with our reading on each
No.
Trend
Reading
Mood
YoY
01.
Slow software
Tools that opt out of urgency by default.
Quiet · welcomed
14 pts
02.
Domestic interfaces
Screens designed to live in living rooms.
Warm · ambient
9 pts
03.
Hand-set print
Letterpress and risograph paired with digital briefs.
Tactile · careful
7 pts
04.
Quietly weird type
Display faces with one slightly off detail.
Curious · alert
flat
05.
Receipts & ledgers
Information designed to be filed, not consumed.
Plain · honest
5 pts
06.
Public weather
Brand voice that admits the day's actual mood.
Open · tender
11 pts
07.
Long-form receipts
Newsletters that read like printed pamphlets.
Slow · sourced
3 pts
08.
Pre-loved objects
Resale and repair as the front of the brand.
Worn · cared
2 pts
07 / 08
Colophon · Index 2026

## See you in the
autumn issue.

08 / 08