He’s opinionated. He’s punctilious. He’s fussy, finicky, hard-to-please, exacting, demanding. He’s persnickety and nitpicking. He has the arrogance which comes of being … well, right (don’t you just hate those people?). He has a bit of an accent … sounds kind of German. Max Kerning: he wants type in good taste, not type that tastes good. Read the rest of this entry »

This tutorial will teach you how to create a very appealing and slightly abstract text effect that looks like the text is made from plants and flowers; you really have to see it to know what I mean. We’ll be using a lot of floral brushes which look great and also learning a really useful technique for accurately hiding stuff behind other stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

There are some basic approaches, guidelines and goals to consider when working with type on the Web. Overall, the medium of Web typography involves readability, accessibility, usability, and brandability. On the Web, these aspects function together to accomplish design’s goals of communication and user interaction.

There are many ways to approach Web typography in order to create effective and expressive results. Let’s take a closer look at some principles, rules and ideas for approaching Web typography decisions, you can use them as a starting point for learning how to achieve effective type setting on the Web. Read the rest of this entry »

From the company that popularized Arial, here are three examples of bad typography in Microsoft Word. Bad typesetting in Word finds its way into resumes, business plans, research papers, government documents, even published books. These small inconsistencies and imperfections may be un-noticible in small doses, but paragraph-after-paragraph they stack up - resulting in ugly, visually-incohesive documents. Word isn’t for professional typography work, but that’s no excuse for these typography sins. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed in how to display fonts on computer displays. Today, both companies are using sub-pixel rendering to coax sharper-looking fonts out of typical low resolution screens. Where they differ is in philosophy. Apple generally believes that the goal of the algorithm should be to preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, even at the cost of a little bit of blurriness. Microsoft generally believes that the shape of each letter should be hammered into pixel boundaries to prevent blur and improve readability, even at the cost of not being true to the typeface. Read the rest of this entry »

Typography is a discipline that goes back many centuries. With the revolution of desktop publishing came a level of typography that was only known to a select few. Today, the use of type by graphic and web designers has developed into an art in itself. Now sophisticated software enables anyone to be a type expert!

Communication Through Typography

In verbal communication there is a transfer of information between speaker and listener. So that your message is understood, you choose words that are pertinent to the conversation and you speak in a tone of voice in order to communicate an idea. To communicate in print is a bit more challenging. However, the basic goal is to get the message across as successfully as possible.

In print, the appearance of text enhances the message the author is trying to convey. By changing the appearance of the words, you can make a connection with the reader. Without typography the words would be left to the unvarying typewriter-style font. Read the rest of this entry »

So you downloaded thousands of fonts, but you still don’t get that look you’re after. At some point, many designers decide to leave their mark in the world and make their own fonts. Read the rest of this entry »