Font art geekery

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812

If you are interested, there are definitely classes in font design. I met a Yale student who was even majoring in font design.

As part of my college education (Graphic Communication), I took a class called "Design With Type." We didn't get into font design, but more about the usage/selection of fonts in creating an overall look. We also got into kerning (the space between letters), leading (spacing between lines of type), etc. Not only does the font itself have visual impact, but how it is presented as well.

One of the things I was fascinated with is the adjustment made to individual characters depending on their size. If one blows up a 6 pt. version of a character and compares it to a 48 point version of the same letter, there are subtle differences to account for visual acuity.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

There's something ironic about a site touting the virtues of good design having their column spacing fouled up.

One downside of the mass availability of information is how poorly it is sometimes presented. HTML, et. al. isn't perfect. But even a lot of printed items are just attrocious. A coworker (a former Adobe instructor and graphic artist) and I often just cry when we see some of the garbage that we are printing.