10 Common Typography Mistakes

“The goal of this post is to help designers and clients understand the importance of good type skills, while avoiding some common mistakes… a list of 10 common mistakes used in type design/layout that can make a huge difference in the effectiveness and appearance of your designs, in addition to saving you time and money when printing.”

Visit tutorial

20 Typefaces To Start A Designer’s Career

 “As a design student myself, I notice that typography is one of the hardest parts that students seem to face… most students are able to come up with extremely creative, innovative and well designed material however as soon as type is needed… well, let’s just say, it could need some more work… I was also guilty of having every font under the sun, however, after the first year of University I quickly learned otherwise – it is best to master a few faces. “

Visit tutorial

50 Incredible Fonts for Professional Web & Print Design

“The web is rich with creative and amazing fonts, and the choice is enormous. So today we would like to present 50 incredible FONT which you can use for web or print design. This collection will sure help you improve your typography skills! Let’s take a close look at some of the most beautiful fonts we’ve found on the web.”

Visit tutorial

7 Fonts that should die

“The problem with being a fontwhore is that you begin to recognize some of the tired, overused fonts that no designer seems to want to let go. If you see them, let out a scream and shoot them on sight."

Despite its overuse, I personally think that Trajan is a great font and should not be on this list. Bu what about Comic Sans?! :D

Visit tutorial

30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Know & Should Own

“Here are 30 of the Best Fonts / Typefaces that every designer must / should own sorted by alphabetical order. There are 15 serif fonts and 15 sans-serif fonts. These fonts will last you your whole career!

A brief description of what each font is best suited for is provided however are not limited to this.”

Visit tutorial

16 Incredibly Detailed, Useful (and free) Dingbat Fonts

“Now, before I start, not everyone is going to think these are all useful, so if you don’t ever use tree silhouettes, fine. But some of us do. Personally, I love dingbats because (most of the time) I convert them to vectors in Illustrator and use them as very large elements in some cases. ”

Visit tutorial

40+ Extremely Beautiful FONTS Hand-picked from deviantART

“The web is rich with creative and amazing fonts, and one of the most unusual source of Beautiful Fonts are those you can find on deviantART fonts gallery. Today we would like to present 40 incredible FONT which you can use for web or print design. Let’s take a close look at some of the most beautiful fonts we’ve found on deviantART.”

Beautiful collection.

Visit tutorial

Color and Typography in Good Design

“Typography is a significant issue for designers. On many projects, finding just the right font, size, spacing, etc. can require considerable time and attention. In addition to typography, color is also a major factor in the success of the design. What is sometimes overlooked is the combination of color and typography and the effect that it has on the overall project.”

Visit tutorial

30 inspiring type treatments

“For a while now, I’ve been tagging type-related work on deviantArt. I thought I’d share them with you”

Stunning.

Visit tutorial

Breathtaking Typographic Posters

“You can’t design without type. However, yon can use only type (or mostly only type) to create breath-taking designs. In fact, many graphic designers and artists take exactly this route to communicate their ideas through their works. The results are sometimes crazy, sometimes artsy, sometimes beautiful, but often just different from things we’re used to. Thus designers explore new horizons and we explore new viewing perspectives which is what inspiration is all about.”

Visit tutorial

Vintage and Retro Typography Showcase

“Typography talks the talk, to go along with the overall work’s walk, speaking volumes for the artist. This important design element surrounds people daily as they move through their routines, rarely taking notice. In this article, we go retro, finding beautiful examples of vintage typography and the modern work they’ve inspired. ”

Visit tutorial

The Showcase Of BIG Typography – Second Edition

“In Web typography doesn’t have to support the overall design. It can dominate. It can be loud. It can be bold. And it can be everywhere on a web-site. In many situations it’s reasonable to give the typography the prominent position it deserves, leaving visual cues in the background or removing them at all. ”

Visit tutorial

The Right Type: 5 Inspiring Typography Tales

“Nowadays, typefaces are a dime a dozen; there’s certainly no shortage of free fonts. But as in any artistic field, the standouts are rare, and understanding why they excel takes gradual experience.

In this yarn, we’ll take a closer look at inspiring stories behind the design of typefaces that you may have seen or used but didn’t know the history of. We’ll explore the nooks and crannies ‘ both literal and figurative ‘ of the evolving printed word. By the end, we hope you come away with a better appreciation of how things came to be.”

Visit tutorial

Top Ten Web Typography Sins

“While many designers have been quick to embrace web standards, it’s surprising how often the basic standards of typography are neglected. Here are ten deadly sins to avoid in your web typography. ”

Visit tutorial

A Guide to Web Typography

“Perhaps because of the overtones of freshness and vitality, water-based effects are always in demand. In this tutorial, Nik Ainley provides step-by-step guidance on how to make a stunning, dynamic effect that recreates the look of a figure dissolving in water, with some clever use of Photoshop and some found images. Although the finished image appears hi-tech, it is just a very clever photomontage constructed from just two images, using relatively simple Photoshop techniques.”

Visit tutorial

On Choosing Type

“There’s nothing better than to play with the tool if you want to learn it…. I think the best way to learn is trying to recreate images and effects we like. Here I list my 10 tips to improve your skills in Photoshop, but they can be applied to other tools as well.”

Visit tutorial

Newzald: From Moleskine to Market

“In this article I will attempt to illustrate my design process’from typeface concept to a marketable font. Not many folks are willing to write about this. Perhaps they find it boring, irrelevant or just a little bit personal. I suspect it is a mix of all the above.

I’ll try to remain as concise as possible. Some of the individual steps can be a lot more complex and involved than they seem. I’ll try not to gloss over too many things. One thing is certain, typeface design is a long, involved process with many hours of seemingly endless tedium.”

Visit tutorial

Friday Flickr Found Type

“Invariably, these kinds of post are couched in grandiloquence, ‘The World’s Best, most stunningly awesome typographically awe-inspiring found type.’ And although, the search engines might love it, I just can’t do it. So here’s some stuff I found that I rather like’and I hope it inspires you.”

Visit tutorial

Letterpress From Scratch

“The letterpress printing process is one of the oldest ways of getting the printed word on to a page. It relies on a physical representation of each letter being inked and then pressed against the paper’and this is why it’s both interesting and expensive.This article looks briefly at this resurgence of interest in letterpress, why you might like it and some help to begin enjoying this fascinating pastime.”

Visit tutorial

eXtreme Type Terminology

“Our modern English alphabet is a child of the Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet, which evolved from a western version of the Greek alphabet approximately 2,700 years ago. The profession of typography was essentially born in Germany with Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of a movable metal type printing press in the early 1450s. The individual pieces of metal type that Gutenberg worked with were not letters, but letterforms.”

Very informative article.

Visit tutorial

15 Great Examples of Web Typography

“It may be that not all the sites listed here are to your taste, but it’s hoped that something—even a detail somewhere—will inspire you.”

Visit tutorial

Small Caps

“Small caps are uppercase glyphs drawn at a lowercase scale. A common misconception—unfortunately reinforced by most word processing programs as well as by CSS on the web—is that a small cap is just a regular capital letter scaled uniformly down to a smaller size. In actuality, a proper small cap is a carefully crafted glyph that differs in significant ways from a uniformly-scaled-down capital letter.”

Visit tutorial

Tutorial: The Worn/Weathered/Stamped Look

“There are quite a few quality stamped or distressed fonts available…Unfortunately ready-made stamp fonts present a number of drawbacks: repeating characters are identical (unless you have alternate glyphs), and the amount of detail is limited due to restrictions in the possible number of Bézier anchor points per glyph. To remedy this I developed a trick in Adobe Photoshop for distressing type. This technique allows you to apply a convincing stamped or weathered look to any typeface.”

Visit tutorial

The Typography of Dexter, Serial Cover Star

A commentary on the promotional advertisements for for Dexter, the television series, and the different typographic techniques employed.

Visit tutorial

Figuring It Out: OSF, LF, and TF Explained

“Numerals (or figures) can take various forms. The figure style you choose ought to be appropriate to the project you are working on. Readability is key. But which style is best for which purpose’ There are two main forms, oldstyle figures (OSF) and lining figures (LF). Each can come in tabular and proportional widths.”

Visit tutorial

Taking Your Fonts to Market: Foundry, Reseller, or Go Solo’

‘I am a new type designer. What’s the best way to get my fonts on the market”

Here is the best answer I can muster, drawn from over 10 years of examining the retail font industry (in what some might call disturbing detail). This advice is intended to be as unbiased as possible, but my perspective is inevitably shaped by four years as a type director at FontShop.

Visit tutorial