On Choosing Type

Brooding Cityscapes Painted with Oils by Jeremy Mann San Francisco-based artist Jeremy Mann executes these sublime, moody cityscapes using oil paints. To create each work he relies on a wide range of techniques including surface staining, the use of solvents to wipe away paint, and the application of broad, gritty marks with an ink brayer. The resulting paintings are dark and atmospheric, urban streets seemingly drenched in rain and mystery. Mann’s work is in no way limited to cityscapes, he also paints the human figure, still lifes, and landscapes.

“Cure for the Common Font” — A Web Designer’s Introduction to Typeface Selection | Typography Commentary Now that web designers suddenly face the challenge (and delight) of choosing fonts from an ever-growing selection, we thought it’s a good time to recommend some basic principles for making wise type choices. The slides from each of our four quick presentations are below, as well as audio generously provided by SXSW. If you’re short on time and feel like you know the fundamentals, skip ahead to the second half of the session — I think the Q&A is as useful as our prepared stuff. Of course, an hour is hardly enough time to deliver what one can get from the first day in a good Type 1 course, and as I listen to the audio I cringe at all the crap I missed or said poorly, but I think we did a decent job of introducing some concepts that will launch young designers more confidently into the new typographic web. Slides Audio Or view the slides at full screen to autoplay the audio. Related Links Recommended Books Webfont Providers Typefaces Used and Mentioned Our Favorite Typefaces of the Moment

The non-typographer’s guide to practical typeface selection Warning: This article contains nothing nearly as meaty and complex as my dissertation about chiasmi from a few weeks back. But I promised I’d follow up with a more detailed report of my five minutes of fame at SXSW 2005, so here she goes. Let’s be frank right off the bat: I don’t presume to be a typographer, or even anything close to an expert with a replete knowledge of typography and its history. Instead, I take a more practical approach to typeface selection, given the environment I’m generally in rarely requires that I need to complicate the process further. My apologies beforehand (have I prefaced this article with enough disclaimers already?) Make a list of those “familiar” typefaces that you trust and know will work well in a variety of projects Supplement that list with a list of “unfamiliar” typefaces that address any specific objectives for the project at hand Test each typeface at small and large sizes Test both caps and lowercase 1. Don’t reinvent the wheel here. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The 100 best free fonts The best free fonts offer plenty of options for your designs without costing anything. Whether you're looking for a classy serif, a clean sans-serif, vintage fonts or something completely different, there's no shortage of choice. In fact there, are so many free fonts out there that it can be hard to know where to start looking. To make it easier for you to find what you're looking for, we've gathered together the best free fonts that we've found in our regular searches of the web. One good resource for fonts, including free fonts, is MyFonts. The best free fonts Serif fonts 01. Kicking off our top picks of the best free fonts is this stunning serif by Craft Supply Co. 02. Carena is a beautiful minimalistic typeface perfect for that rustic yet elevated look. 03. Harmony is available for download from Behance. 04. This is a great offering from Pangram and Pangram. Daily design news, reviews, how-tos and more, as picked by the editors. 05. 06. 07. Looking to design your own book cover? 08.

Stumblers Who Like Most Amazing Miniature Food Artworks by Shay Aaron Shay Aaron is a brilliant artist from Israel who makes the most astonishing miniature food jewelry. These foodstuffs look so beautiful that we would desire to eat them. Actually, there’s a whole market out there for miniature food. Not actual stuff you can eat, but beautifully hand made designs of steaks, burgers, pies, vegetables, eggs and pretty much food artworks you can think of. Comments comments Type classifications are useful, but the common ones are not This is an article I wrote for the publication about the conference Research in Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts Kattowice where I gave a talk on the subject in January 2012. Please excuse the lack of illustrations. I will try to add some later, but usually those are empty promises as you can see in other posts on this site. Estimated reading time: 16 minutes It is a recurring phenomenon that we tend to sort what comes in large amounts to be able to grasp it, for quicker reference, and to find it back more easily. Any categorization covers three aspects: 1. sorting in (this is what scholars and historians do, also type manufacturers), 2. reference (educating) and 3. taking out or finding back (this is what the user usually does). What happened? Assigning names to typefaces and classifying them is a rather new occurrence in our 560 years of type. Then the industrial revolution happened. Still, the actual typefaces themselves were not given individual names like today. 1. 2.

Technical Web Typography: Guidelines and Techniques Advertisement The Web is 95% typography, or so they say. I think this is a pretty accurate statement: we visit websites largely with the intention of reading. That’s what you’re doing now — reading. With this in mind, does it not stand to reason that your typography should be one of the most considered aspects of your designs? Unfortunately, for every person who is obsessed with even the tiniest details of typography, a dozen or so people seem to be indifferent. Creative and Technical Typography I’m not sure these two categories are recognized in the industry but, in my mind, the two main types of typography are creative and technical. Creative typography involves making design decisions such as which face to use, what mood the type should create, how it should be set, what tone it should have — for example, should it be airy, spacious and open (light) or condensed, bold and tight, with less white space (dark)? We’ll focus on technical type in this article. We’ll learn about: <! Beware! <!

Mexout on Behance Mexout is a fresh-mex eatery in Singapore. We imagine Mexout to be a young eccentric Mexican food expert, or "Mex'pert" as we've coined it, who i… Read More Mexout is a fresh-mex eatery in Singapore. The Anatomy of Type How to Choose a Typeface Advertisement Choosing a typeface can be tricky. The beauty and complexity of type, combined with an inexhaustible supply of options to evaluate, can make your head spin. But don’t be baffled — and don’t despair. While there are no easy-to-follow rules on how best to choose a typeface, there are many tried-and-true principles you can quickly learn and apply to make an appropriate typeface choice. If you work systematically through the options below, you’ll have a winning typeface choice in no time. What Is Your Goal? The first thing you have to do in order to choose a typeface is form a strong impression in your mind about how you want your audience to react to the text. Perhaps the hardest part of breaking down the typeface selection process is understanding which parts are more subjective and which parts are more objective. Legibility It may seem at first glance that legibility and readability are the same thing, but they are not. Quick tips for great legibility: Readability Design Intent