Blog

Understanding Proportional and Non-Proportional Fonts

Feb 02, 2013    Font Types
The world of fonts is one of the most important, but least understood, elements of web design, but it is important for any web site owner or business person to understand what fonts are and how they work. Choosing the right fonts can greatly enhance the usability and function of virtually any web site. The right color, and the right font size, can have a big impact on success of failure of your web site. Proportional Fonts It is important for all web site designers to understand the difference between proportional and non-proportional fonts...
Read more →

Bitmap and Pixel Fonts

Feb 02, 2013    Font Types
Bitmap and pixel fonts are fonts that are designed especially for the screen. Each part of each character corresponds to one of the monitor's pixels. Because of the way they are designed, even at smaller sizes and at varying screen resolutions, they are clear and legible.

These fonts are commonly used in Flash animations, web navigation buttons and on webpages where clear, small print is required such as photo captions. Oftentimes, a font designed for print will become hard to read and unattractive at smaller sizes on a webpage. Instead, many designers opt to use a bitmap font also known as a pixel font.

Because pixel fonts are created on a grid that duplicates the monitor's pixels, they should not be scaled, they should never be used at sizes other than for what they were designed (or exact multiples), nor should anti-aliasing be applied to them. Otherwise they will become distorted.

For best results when using bitmap fonts, keep the following in mind:

Anti-aliasing should be off Set your page to a 72 ppi resolution Always use the appropriate type size, if the font is designed as a 7 pixel size and you require a 10 pixel size, opt for a pixel font designed at 10 pixels. Do not try to resize the 7 into a 10. Set tracking and kerning...
Read more →

A Look at TrueType Fonts and Apple

Feb 02, 2013    Font Types
There are of course many different types of fonts that can be used in the worlds of offline and online publishing, but TrueType fonts remain among the most popular, versatile and above all useful fonts in the computer world. The TrueType font is an outline font standard which was originally developed by Apple Computer back in the late 1980s. The original TrueType font was developed by Apple as a direct competitor of the Type 1 fonts developed by Adobe, and the primary advantage of these TrueType fonts were that they offered developers a...
Read more →

A Few Common Font Types

Feb 02, 2013    Font Types
Fonts, typefaces, just what are they? A font is a set of characters including both letters and numbers, in a particular size and style of type. Letters and characters have different looks and a font face or typeface is the name given to describe the particular typesetting. Characteristics can be applied to fonts. For example, a style such as bold or italic can be employed, the size can be adjusted and the color can be changed. But the font remains the same. You may have heard of serif fonts and sans serif fonts. Think of "serifs" as curlicues,...
Read more →

Managing Fonts in MS Word

Feb 02, 2013    Font Management
Consistency in using fonts is one of the keys to good design whether you're designing a webpage, a document or any sort of publication. Let's take a look at how some of the tools in Microsoft Word help to manage the use of fonts when working on a document. MS Word comes with many powerful features. Using predefined headings instead of simply formatting as you go allows you to create a dynamic table of contents based off of those headings. The headings also help to maintain font consistency throughout the document. Word comes with default styles...
Read more →

Control Fonts with Font Management

Feb 02, 2013    Font Management
This article is directed at computer users running the Windows operating system. Many people never think twice about the fonts on their computer. As far as they're concerned, they only have one font, and it's usually Times New Roman. However, some people love their fonts. These people study fonts, search for new fonts to install, and deal with various fonts on a daily basis. Who are these people? They're usually typographers, graphic designers, and web designers. Fonts mean a lot to these people. Fonts are fun, but they can also be overwhelming....
Read more →

The History of the Font

Feb 02, 2013    Font History
Any person who works with computers or the internet will have to understand the concept of fonts. Understanding which fonts to use, and choosing the right fonts, is an important decision for any web designer, web developer, business owner or executive. When designing a winning web page, for instance, it is important to choose a font that will be both pleasing to the eye and easy to read on any type of computer monitor. The history of the word font goes back far more than the history of the computer, all the way back to the middle ages in fact....
Read more →

Six Typefaces Designed by Matthew Carter

Feb 02, 2013    Font History
Three of the most popular typefaces used today are Verdana, Georgia, and Tahoma. Each of them were designed by Matthew Carter, and in spite of being relatively new, they all have an interesting history and background. Matthew Carter is a master typographer who has designed typefaces for over forty years. He was originally interested in fonts from the 16th century, and first gained experience with typography under his father, Harry Carter, who is a linguist, lawyer, and type designer, presently working for Oxford University Press...
Read more →
close
Login into your account