Five Simple Steps To Better Typography – April 13th, 2005 – Typography, I find, is still a bit of mystery to a lot of designers. The kind of typography I’m talking about is not your typical “What font should I use” typography but rather your “knowing your hanging punctuation from your em-dash” typography. Call me a little bit purist but this bothers me. So, in an attempt to spread the word here’s the first of five simple steps to better typography. Measure the Measure. The Measure is the name given to the width of a body of type. One point = 1/72 of an inchOne pica = 12 pointsOne em = The distance horizontally equal to the type size, in points, you are using. But, with the advent of DTP packages and the website design the following are also now used: MillimetresPixels There is an optimum width for a Measure and that is defined by the amount of characters are in the line. CSS and fluid? What is interesting here is fluid designs on the web. The Measure and leading. Reversing out? Tracking Your responsibility The series Further reading
Setting Weights And Styles With The @font-face Declaration 85 Amazing Typography Tutorials The web is brimming with typography tutorials, but many are low quality and others are very out of date. So we’ve trawled the internet to uncover the diamonds in the rough, in the form of 50 top-quality typography tutorials, to bring your knowledge and skills up to speed. Get Creative Cloud Perhaps you’re looking for a good introduction to the fundamentals of typography? Or perhaps you want to develop and push your type abilities further? We’ll be adding to this list as time moves on, so make sure you bookmark this fantastic resource, and come back from time to time to see what’s new in the world of typography tutorials. We'll start by looking at tutorials to help you with mastering the fundamentals of typography – skip through to another page if you're after something more advanced. 01. Not sure exactly what typography terms mean? Six further terms (tracking, widows and orphans, serif fonts, sans-serif fonts and script & cursive fonts) are explained in part two, which you can watch here.
Font kerning: 10 expert tips | Typography Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between letters to achieve a visually pleasing result. Some designers find it easy, others find it a tricky process where success is achieved more by luck than real judgement. But follow these tips and you should find yourself on the right track... 01. Choose your typeface early on Each typeface requires its own kerning and specific adjustments and attention to detail. 02. The main focus of kerning is usually the spacing between characters, but don't forget the spacing between words as well. 03. Remember that some letters that don’t kern as well as others within a word. 04. You may hear other designers talk about 'tracking' and assume it's the same thing as kerning. 05. Like mastering any technique, the best and most effective way to improve your kerning skills is through practice. 06. 07. Another useful exercise for kerning is to turn the typeface upside-down. 08. 09. 10. Words: Meryem Meg and Brian Hoff Like this?
10 Principles For Readable Web Typography - Smashing Magazine Advertisement by Matt Cronin Readability is one of the more important aspects of Web design usability. Readable text affects how users process the information in the content. In this post, we’ll explain some Web typography terms and how they play into readability; we’ll present numerous tips to help improve the readability of your content; and we’ll showcase very readable websites, layouts and articles. You may also be interested in the following related posts: The Terms, And What Each Means For Readability There are many factors that play into the readability of text. Hierarchy Every typographic layout needs the essential element of hierarchy. UXBooth5 uses a very clean hierarchy to achieve readable Web typography. Contrast Contrast is the core factor in whether or not text is easy to read. As shown in the following illustration, black on white is very readable. This one, however, pink on blue, is nearly impossible to read. The Keys to Readable Typography 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. (al)
Understanding The Difference Between Type And Lettering "What Font Should I Use?": Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces - Smashing Magazine Advertisement For many beginners, the task of picking fonts is a mystifying process. There seem to be endless choices — from normal, conventional-looking fonts to novelty candy cane fonts and bunny fonts — with no way of understanding the options, only never-ending lists of categories and recommendations. Selecting the right typeface is a mixture of firm rules and loose intuition, and takes years of experience to develop a feeling for. 1. Many of my beginning students go about picking a font as though they were searching for new music to listen to: they assess the personality of each face and look for something unique and distinctive that expresses their particular aesthetic taste, perspective and personal history. The most appropriate analogy for picking type. For better or for worse, picking a typeface is more like getting dressed in the morning. A large type family like Helvetica Neue can be used to express a range of voices and emotions. 2. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 3. 4. So far, so good. 5.
How to Use Icon Fonts in Your Website Icon fonts are quickly becoming a web design trend and there is a good reason for that. Creating icons with icon fonts gives designers the ability to manipulate the icons with CSS. The days of creating two different icon images for rollovers or effects are long gone. Aside from giving designers and developers more control, icon fonts also offer many features that bitmap image icons simply do not. Here is a demonstration of how icon fonts look scaled up compared to bitmap icons. As you can see, the bitmap icons get pixelated while the vector font icons scale up fine and look as sharp and precise as they did in a smaller size. One other advantage we get with icon fonts is load time. So let’s go over how to implement icon fonts in your website. Step 1: Load The Font via @font-face This is the same process as loading any other font using the @font-face method. Step 2: Create CSS Rules That Apply to Every Icon Explanation for each of these CSS properties and their values This is the fun part.
The Basics of Typography Typography is a central component of design. It gives us an understanding of the heritage behind our craft. It’s one of the primary ways we, as a society, pass on information to others. Imagine a website, a magazine or even TV without text. What Is Typography? From a descriptive and simplistic point-of-view, typography is the arrangement of type. For me, how typography is used in a design is deeply rooted in its overall theme, tone and message. Your choice of typefaces and your technique of setting type give your composition its character, pace and style. A simple illustration of how influential typography can be is to look at the same text with different typefaces. It’s this level of integration with a design theme that makes typography one of the most powerful tools in the designer’s toolbox. Next, let’s go through a few basic typography terms and concepts. Lines A line of characters has at least five lines that it can be aligned to. Here are the five lines: Leading Leading is powerful.
Choosing web fonts: 15 expert tips | Web design Over the last few years, the possibilities for using type on the web have expanded enormously. In the bad old days of the web, designers were restricted to a few 'web safe' fonts, which meant everything looked pretty much the same, or using images to replace the type – a clunky solution that caused problems for the reader and technical problems in the browser. Nowadays, though, you can access an astonishing array of professional typefaces for use on your sites, bringing the aesthetics of print design to the web. Since around 2010, widespread support of @font-face in all the major browsers, plus a new web open font format, WOFF, has led to a technical revolution and the rise of a number of web font hosting services. These companies allow users to pay a subscription to host an enormous range of web fonts on their website. Tim Brown is the type manager at Typekit. 01. 02. 03. The web may move at lightning speed, but quality typesetting requires lots of patience. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09.
Just don't do it: 14 type crimes to stop committing Getting your typography correct is not an easy thing to do. Like graphic design as a whole, is has to be both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Just like you do in a logo, when you’re working with big blocks of text in a print or web design, you have to put a lot of thought into how the type is working. We’ve assembled 13 crimes against type you need to avoid. It’s not an exhaustive list — there are other things that can trip you up as well (oh, the difficulties of being a designer), but it’s a good place to start. An example of creative management for a lot of text, by Atelier Martino&Jaña for the European Capital of Culture. 1. Yes, this one is subjective. Comic Sans is almost always disdained, and Helvetica is so frequently a top choice, that it’s overused in popular culture. When making your design put thought into the font you choose. 2. There are SO MANY font faces out there. You only need 2 or 3 — one for the title (maybe subtitle), and one for the body. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Sans Serif Fonts: Most Popular Typefaces, Best for Webfonts As San Serif typefaces have only been around for about 100 years, it is necessary for designers or enthusiasts to have an understanding how it all came about. Based on known historical accounts, officially, modern sans serif has been created on 1816 by William Caslon IV at the English Type foundry. The English Egyptian Typeface is designed only in capital letters in 28 points. Then came; Akzidenz Grotesk created in Berlin at the German Berthold type foundry. Why grotesk / grotesque? When the first typefaces of this sort came about in the 1830, people first considered them as blatantly grotesque and due to their controversial appeal; they are a rarity in texts and other printed forms with an exception of advertising. Why sans Serif? The main appeal of Sans Serif would not be understood until the early 20th century. German influences It seems the prevalence of sans serif, from the Akzidenz Grotesk would not push through without the Bauhaus ideology which began and evolved in Germany. Futura
Typography Cheat Sheet: The 6 Big Mistakes To Avoid Typography is one of those strange skills — too mathematical to be pure art, but a touch too intangible to be pure science. Our modern life is awash with text, so all front-end devs really need to have a thorough working knowledge of the “art of arranging type”. So, let’s run through a quick-fire cheat sheet of some of the most common typography mistakes — and ways to avoid them. Mis-judged Text Line Lengths Many designers tend to not pay enough attention to the number of characters in an average line of their text and adversely affect the readability of the text. Happily, this is an easy mistake to avoid, as the optimal length has long been identified. The great Swiss typographer, Emil Ruder did a lot of work on this topic in the 1950′s. In his seminal essay, “Typographie: A Manual of Design”, he concluded that the ‘sweet spot’ for line length was around 50 or 60 characters. Shorter line lengths slows comprehension as the eye spends more time tracking back to the next line. Badly Paired Fonts
10 Infographics That Will Teach You About Typography Typography is a crucial component of great designs involving text, so knowing as much as you can about it is an important step to becoming a great designer. This roundup of infographics will help you discover new and interesting things (as well as reinforce and reiterate stuff you already know) about typography. Click the Go to Source link under each infographic to navigate to the source of the infographic and to see the larger version provided by the creator of the infographic. 1. Did you know that Israel is the source of the most expensive typefaces? Go to Source 2. This beginner’s guide to type shows you some popular font categories (like monospaced fonts and script fonts), the anotomy of a typeface, a few typography principles, and more. Go to Source 3. This infographic starts by disambiguating the terms "typefaces" and "fonts", and then concludes with the top five most-used typefaces in graphic design, journalism, and academia. Go to Source 4. Go to Source 5. Go to Source 6. Go to Source