CreativePro.Com Typography

TypeTalk: The Anatomy of a Character

IleneStrizver99 — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:18:50 -0700

TypeTalk is a regular blog on typography. Post your questions and comments by clicking on the Comments icon above.

Q. Why should I care what the names are for parts of a character? Does it really matter?

Scanning Around With Gene: Best in the West Graphics, 1970

GeneGable — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:50:00 -0700

In 1970 I was a freshman in high school. Although I wasn't aware of graphic design as an art form, I was beginning to notice the effect design had on me as a consumer. Book jackets, billboards, record-album covers, and magazines were an important part of my life. In a few more years I would begin to appreciate the talent they represented.

Best of the Blogs: Old School and New Skills

Editor in Chief — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:23:31 -0700

Typography

Best of the Blogs: August 1, 2011

Editor in Chief — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:31:01 -0600

Don't have time to read scores of blogs every day? Don't worry, I've done it for you, and picked out the best posts you shouldn't miss.

Typography

Cutting-Edge Conference for Print and Digital Publishing

Editor in Chief — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:25:20 -0700

The lengthy session list at the 2012 PEPCON print and ePublishing conference could be boiled down into one sentence: Attend this event or fall behind.

Seriously, just look at these session titles (which are only a sampling of the full list):

• InDesign to iPad and Android Apps
• Making Your Folio Come Alive: Embedding HTML and RSS
• XML for Print and Digital Publishing
• Stay on the Cutting Edge: Five Tools to Learn Now

When It's Safe to Use Free Fonts

Editor in Chief — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:17:27 -0700

Many of us are intrigued by the idea of free fonts. However, the reality can be a little complicated. For example, if you use a free font on a client's project, you want to be sure that the use is legal. There's nothing worse than a type foundry calling your client with the news that the font wasn't licensed for commercial use.

Yves Peters has written a handy guide to keep you on the right side of the law. Called "Licensing 101," the guide is distributed by FontShop as a PDF.

Type Is Everywhere

Editor in Chief — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:02:27 -0700

For typophiles, just walking down a city street can be a source of joy and despair. We can find beautiful typography everywhere, but often, it's on old signs, buildings, or storefronts that are about to make way for something new and, often, generically dull.

Try These Type Webinars from Ilene Strizver

Editor in Chief — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:50:43 -0700

Long-time CreativePro.com columnist and type expert Ilene Strizver is offering a series of online seminars. The first, "Troubling Typesetting Mysteries: Solved!" debuted in December. Don't curse us for telling you about it too late: You can watch the entire webinar for free! Just register as a member on the Type Studio site (that's free, too), and you can be enlightened whenever you have the time.

Kerning: A Master Class

Editor in Chief — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:15:38 -0600

I've just finished reviewing two rounds of printed page proofs from the second edition of my book The Complete Manual of Typography (Adobe Press/Peachpit Press), in the course of which I hand-kerned some 150 passages of display type as well as scores of instances in text and captions. I am in the perfect frame of mind to expound on kerning, going well beyond the "Kerning 101" basics I outlined 18 months ago in the article One Good Kern Deserves Another."

Hand-Lettering Lovers, Rejoice

Editor in Chief — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:42:04 -0700

You may have heard Lisa Congdon's name before. She's an artist, illustrator, and an avid collector, and in 2010, she documented 365 of those collections. You can see them all on her Collection a Day website.

Daily Drawings Reach One Thousand

Editor in Chief — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:54:27 -0700

Four years ago, illustrator and graphic designer Chris Piascik made a major commitment: Draw something every weekday until he hit 1,000 drawings. Last week, he reached that goal.

As you might expect, the quality of those drawings can be uneven, but they're all interesting. Here are a few:

TypeTalk: The Dos and Don'ts of Type in Motion

IleneStrizver99 — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:46:41 -0700

TypeTalk is a regular blog on typography. Post your questions and comments by clicking on the Comments icon above.

Q. Do you have guidelines for typography in motion graphics?

A. Type has gone multimedia, appearing in many forms beyond its traditional role in print. As an element in motion graphics, typography is used in marketing materials, websites, presentations, commercials, television intros, movie titles, and video games, to name a few.

Starry, Starry Type

Editor in Chief — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:19:19 -0700

Gravilux is a $1.99 iOS app with trippy graphics that don't conform to the laws of our universe. The new version 2.0 of Gravilux adds the ability to animate text once you buy the typography module via in-app purchase. You can type in words and even entire sentences, which the app renders in its trademark stars. Then you touch the screen to animate the text: you can push and pull, collapse them into a black hole, or explode them into a typographic supernova.

The Merits of Uneven Leading

Editor in Chief — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:52:38 -0700

I’ve railed against the use of automatic leading before, but in this article I want to point out how even when carefully set, consistent leading can look wrong. It’s another case of the numbers in a software program saying one thing but your eyes saying another.

Five Tips for Choosing the Best Webfonts

Editor in Chief — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:36:39 -0700

Web and print typography have a lot of obvious differences. Beyond resolution, variable medium sizes, user interface, and the fact that one medium reflects light while the other radiates it, the most frustrating historical difference has been the lack of fonts to choose from on the web side.