A Designer’s Font Playground

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Hoefler & Co. recently launched a font playground of sorts: Discover.typography.

The nascent site encourages interaction with fonts as well as presents fonts in their “natural habitat” for easier appreciation and identification. Selecting one of the few current examples brings up a display of several fonts in nicely designed layouts.

Users are given the chance to, as they put it, “see how a font performs, especially in the company of other typefaces.” A size slider lets the user zoom in on the design for closer inspection. Clicking on any type highlights only the uses of that family in the layout and gently urges the user to shop for that font.

The resulting product page lists the entire family (or set), lets the user choose multipurpose or web versions, and even offers suggested font pairings with helpful visuals.

Though the ultimate goal of this Hoefler & Co site is to sell fonts, I’m hoping the Discovery.typography site quickly fills up with fun new examples of inspiration and creativity.

 

Erica Gamet has been involved in the graphics industry for over 35 years. She is a speaker, writer, trainer, and content creator focusing on Adobe InDesign, Apple Keynote, and varied production topics. She is a regular presenter at CreativePro Week, regular contributor to CreativePro Magazine, and has spoken at Canada’s ebookcraft, Adobe MAX, and Making Design in Oslo, Norway. Find Erica online at the CreativePro YouTube channel, CreativeLive.com and through her own YouTube channel. When she isn’t at her computer she’s probably daydreaming about travel or living in a Nordic noir landscape.

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  • Bret Donaldson says:

    “Font” and “typeface” are not interchangeable terms. A typeface is a particlular style of lettering. A font is what let’s you apply or create with that typeface. In days gone by, fonts were the physical tiny metal letters that would be assembled to print your artwork. Today, it’s software.

    As a long-time designer and type enthusiast, it drives me crazy to hear everyone use “font” as a catchall term. :)

  • Guest says:

    There are many schools of thought on the font vs. typeface topic. Not only do we have changes in technology to thank, but also the ever-fluid nature of language itself. There was a great long discussion of this very topic by (I believe) Nigel French…though I can’t find it at the moment. With many things, deciding how you will use a set of terms and sticking with that pattern is the best way to go. I, myself, use the term “typeface” when speaking of a named style of type (Helvetica) and “font” when speaking of the individual form of that typeface (Helvetica Bold). I would refer to the entire group of fonts as a family (The Helvetica family) or as a set (as I did above) if the individual fonts are being bundled together.

  • Ekwoman says:

    And if I had been signed in, you could see that I had written the previous comment. Apologies.

  • lucy123 says:

    when speaking of the individual form of that typeface (Helvetica Bold).

    Lucy @ https://www.hotellyonouest.com

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