Typography - Page 9

Typography / 25 Feb 2013

Is My Type Stressed? a Primer on Stressed Typography

As a designer, either working with a design firm or on a freelance basis, you probably know a lot about stress. From deadlines to redesigns, client relations to cash flow — it is part of everyday life for someone working as a designer in any capacity.

But did you know your typography could also be stressed? Just like in your life, type has certain pressure points, and there are good and bad types of type stress. In today’s article, we’re going to delve into this concept in a little more details. We’ll walk you through exactly what types of typographical stress there are, how you can ensure it doesn’t affect the readability of your designs.

Typography / 2 Jan 2013

Add Flair to Projects With Alternate Lettering

Most typefaces have more than just 52 letters – 26 uppercase and 26 lowercase. They also contain an assortment of alternate characters that can help add flair and interest to your typography.

These special characters have been around since the beginning of type. Renowned typographer Johannes Gutenberg even used them in printing early copies of the Bible.

Typography / 19 Jul 2012

Leveraging Stereotypes in Design: Masculine vs. Feminine Typography

Can type have a gender? Is it even socially acceptable to ask such as question? Putting aside any sort of nonsensical gender bias, it’s absolutely the case that typography can and does suggest a level of masculinity (or a lack thereof).

Today, we’re going to jump into what makes a typeface feminine vs. masculine. More importantly, we’ll talk about why this matters and and how it should influence your design work.

Google Fonts / 20 Mar 2012

10 More Great Google Font Combinations You Can Copy

The last time we wrote about Google Web Fonts, it was a fairly new program with a handful of fonts. Today there are nearly 500 font families ready and waiting to be served up to your website completely free of charge. Google has certainly made its mark on web typography and stands as an excellent alternative to premium subscription services.

The downside of this growth is that it’s becomingly increasingly difficult to sift through the library to find the best selections.

We’ve got your back though and are serving up another great collection of Google Web Font combinations ripe for the stealing. Just copy and paste our code, then tweak the style to fit your needs and you’ll be good to go!

Typography / 8 Mar 2012

That’s Arial Hot Shot: 5 Tricks for Spotting Helvetica in the Wild

So you think you’re a pro at spotting typefaces eh? You’re a real type lover with at least one clever t-shirt dedicated to the cause of teaching the world to kern. You’ve seen the Helvetica documentary eight times and you love to walk around a crowded city with a superior smirk on your face, pointing out all the instances of Helvetica that you see.

The big problem with this, aside from the fact that you seem a little full of yourself, is that Helvetica can actually be pretty tricky to identify if you haven’t done your homework. I’m willing to bet that you’ve even pointed at Arial (gasp!) a time or two and boldly proclaimed it to be Helvetica! Save yourself the embarrassment and learn some great tricks for spotting the most ubiquitous font on the planet.

Typography / 26 Jan 2012

Pick the Right Typefaces for Your Project

Sometimes the most daunting part of a new project can be the brainstorming phase. Thinking of color schemes and font selections can be inspiring in your head, but really tough when you start mixing and matching elements on paper or for your website.

Understanding some of the history of fonts and typography can help make any project a little easier. Learn how to pair different typefaces to get desired effect every time and learn what things to avoid. Sharp typography and font selections can really make or break just about any project.

Typography / 4 Jan 2012

Typography With Perspective: Learn to Wield Illustrator’s Perspective Grid Tool

Today we’re going to take a look at how to use the Perspective Grid in Adobe Illustrator. This awesome and fairly new tool allows you to automatically flow vector elements onto a prebuilt three dimensional grid.

You might think that you need to be an artist to use this tool but there are in fact all kinds of practical uses for it in every day design. We’ll use it to lay out some type like in the example above.

Typography / 30 Dec 2011

60 Absolutely Stunning Typography Projects

One of the best ways to get pure, unadulterated design inspiration is to look at a great collection of typographical art. The techniques, craftsmanship and gamut of visual styles is always enough to kick in the creative side of your brain and lead you to some incredible new ideas.

Today we’ve got sixty mind-blowing examples typographical art handpicked from Behance. In this post you’ll find branding concepts, free fonts, handcrafted goods and more.

Typography / 7 Dec 2011

Typography 101: Understanding the Anatomy of a Letter

Every designer, whether you’re in print or web, should possess a basic understanding of fonts and type. Using the right typeface and understanding how a font will impact your design can add that extra pop to print and digital projects and will set them apart from all others.

One important area to understand is the anatomy of type. Ascenders, descenders and serifs may sound like words from another language but are the basis for understanding the style of a typeface and how if relates to your project. Today we’ll take a brief run through of some terminology that you should know.

Typography / 6 Sep 2011

Script Tips: 50 Examples of Script Headlines and Logos

Today we’re going to talk about script fonts. We’ll examine how they’re commonly used on the web, offer up some tips for incorporating them into your own designs and see fifty sites that use scripts in a big way.

We’ll also take a close look at one of the most commonly used scripts on the web today, can you guess what it is?

Typography / 1 Sep 2011

Kerning Live Web Type With jQuery and Lettering.js

Yesterday we published an article outlining Eight Simple and Useful Tips for Kerning Type. This mostly focused on the basics of kerning: what it is, how it works, letter pairs to keep an eye on, etc.

Today we’re following that up with a discussion on how to use Lettering.js to kern your web type. Don’t worry, it’s much easier than you think!

Typography / 31 Aug 2011

8 Simple and Useful Tips for Kerning Type

Kerning is fun! All right, unless you’re a serious type nerd like me, that’s definitely not going to be a true statement. However, it is an absolutely essential part of your typographical education and implementation.

If you’ve been ignoring kerning or simply aren’t sure how to do it properly, take a look at these eight quick tips and get started on the road to becoming a kerning master.