Mac Mini M1 OR Studio?

Carl Shank • January 13, 2023

Through the modern years, Mac Mini's have kept their shape and design — with a width and depth of 7.7 inches and 1.4 inch height. The newest Mini M1 weighs 2.6 pounds and fits nicely beside my desktop monitor.

The new Mac Studio has either the M1 Max chip or the M1 Ultra chip driving the computing power. The M1 Max chip is a 10-core CPU with 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores, with a 24-core GPU and 16-core Neural engine. The M1 Ultra chip has a 20-core CPU, a 48-core GPU and a 32-core Neural engine. What all of this means is that this beast is FAST — especially at video rendering and production.

Mac Studio typical speed test.

With the Apple release of the new Mac Studio in 2022, users who have relied on Mac Mini's on their desktop are left with the question of which one to use for them. Both machines use the newer M1 chip in their architecture, giving a notable speed boost to everything from ordinary computer use to layout and design with Adobe products. I have used numerous Mac Mini's through the years, from the humble 2005 PowerPC model through the Intel models in the mid-2000s all the way to the latest Mac mini M1 released in 2020.

The back of the Mini M1 has two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports. with two USB-A ports, a HDMI port and a Gigabit Ethernet port (configurable to 10Gb Ethernet). A 3.5 mm headphone jack is included. Of course, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are built in, along with a built-in speaker. This Mac can support up to two displays, one with up to 6K resolution and another with up to 4K resolution. This is a powerful machine for its size and stature!

Although it's height is bigger than a Mini (3.7 inches), it is still 7.7 inches by 7.7 inches in width and depth. The biggest seen difference here is in the multitude of ports on the back and front of the Studio. There are four Thunderbolt 4 ports (up to 40 Gb/s), a Display port, two USB-A ports (or USB 4 and USB 3.1) a HDMI port, a 10 Gb Ethernet port and a 3.5 headphone jack port. The front of the M1 Max Studio has two USB-C ports and a SDXC card slot. What the Mini M1 lacks in ports, often needing external help in getting extra ports, the Mac Studio has them all built-in.

Mac Mini M1 typical speed test.

The Mac Studio outpaces the Mac Mini M1, as it should. Of course, others have done more extensive speed tests (find them on YouTube). The speed differential in normal computer work is not that great.


The Mac Mini M1 is a lot cheaper ($699 to $899 retail) than the Mac Studio ($1,999 to $3,999 retail) and its power is quite adequate for most normal computer tasks. The Mac Studio is a pro-sumer computer, less than a professional Mac Pro computer ($5,999 to $6,499 retail), an in-between computer for those wanting multiple displays and faster video editing capabilities or a multitude of high memory use programs simultaneously open. The 8 Gb or even 16 Gb memory option for the Mac Mini pushes the limits of memory use for memory-hogging programs. Notably, a super fitted Mac Mini computer costs about the same as a base line Mac Studio.


Which of these two smaller fitting desktop computers should you buy? It all depends on your use of them and the programming you use on them. I like the faster Mac Studio with its built-in 32 – 64 Gb memory options contrasted to the 8 – 16 Gb memory options on the Mini M1. I also like the multiple ports on the Mac Studio, if you can afford it.

Successful Layout & Design

Font Restoration Mechanics

By Carl Shank • May 13, 2025
Font Restoration Mechanics. Let me begin by giving an example from the world of theology, my first love and profession. Many people, even many non-Christian people, know that we are saved “by faith.” But faith in what or who? Well, faith in God. But this is imprecise. It is faith in Jesus Christ the Bible tells us. But once again, this too can be mistaken as just an intellectual nod of the mind toward Jesus without a real life change or transformation. More detailed biblical discussion, with appropriate distinctions, must be made so that we don’t make “faith” a human, works-based activity we do to please God. Or some existential “experience” with no definable qualities. Digging even deeper, faith saves no one, though it is absolutely necessary for salvation. It is Jesus Christ who saves. Faith becomes an “instrument” of salvation. Theologians have been unpacking this salvation “by faith alone” for centuries. Books and “how-to” sermons have been written and preached and taught here. Do you see the tremendous amount of refinement that “faith” requires? Precise typography claims similar distinctions and refinements in letter development and typeface creation. CARE Typography has been able to restore older hand-drawn fonts from various sources to modern digital typefaces. One of those most prolific sources has been from Alphabets Old and New — For The Use of Craftsmen, With An Introductory Essay on ‘Art in the Alphabet’” by Lewis F. Day, London, 1910.There is a wealth of older fonts shown by Day, one of them being a Roman Forum font from an old Roman Forum engraving. It might be thought that to copy and paste the letters and import them into a font design program, like FontLab’s Fontographer, is simple and rather straight-forward. Not so. From a font designer’s work, the transfer from a screenshot of an old book to a clear and professional open type font (SEE my Blog on “Open Type Fonts” in “More About Fonts” March 9, 2021) takes care and lots of work. It is both tedious and time intensive. The details of such work are often overlooked. Here’s an inside look at such work.

Wide Is Beautiful

By Carl Shank • March 15, 2025
Wide Is Beautiful What makes a typeface beautiful? Aesthetically pleasing fonts or typefaces have differing qualities that make them suitable and beautiful in different contexts and uses. I have chosen six (6) wide or "extended" font faces to highlight the inherent beauty and usability of such type. The samples chosen range from well used Adobe fonts to a specialty antique wide font CARE Typography crafted from an old fashioned type book published by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc of New York back in 1945.
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