Font art geekery

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

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.

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.

Dig. And terminology, yay!

Originally Posted by Alex

I believe most know about it. But if not, I recommend watching Helvetica, a documentary about, well, the history and use of the Helvetica font. (It is available for instant viewing on Netflix, which is how I watched it.)

I've been putting off seeing this - thanks for the reminder. GD gets to blame you when he is forced to watch this.

I use Comic Sans in comic contexts. I resisted using comic/anime inspired fonts in my Teen Zone signage. So. Over. It. Using Comic Sans for communique? Bwahaha. The background users suck, too.

I've been partial to Book Antiqua forever but am now finally over it. I think I need a new basic font. I do like Palatino. Helvetica is a bit too harsh for my taste. Garamond is still cool (The font of Harry Potter, if I'm not mistaken).

Anyone know any geeky font sites? I'll post some later...

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

I've been putting off seeing this - thanks for the reminder. GD gets to blame you when he is forced to watch this.

Uh, I AM the one who recommended a book about typeface...

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

http://ilovetypography.com/


http://abc.planet-typography.com/index.html

http://www.flickr.com/groups/folktype/pool/

http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archi...-headlines.php

http://www.houseind.com/

http://www.craigoldham.co.uk/ (http://www.craigoldham.co.uk/ongoing/ampersands/)

[JWBear]

Call me old fashioned, but I routinely use Times New Roman.

[Alex]

For regular writing/reading of large text I don't like serifs so the first thing I do when getting a new work computer is kill Times New Roman as the default font.

So long as it is relatively unadorned and sans serif I am fine. Which usually means Arial. Not out of any strong preference though, just better than the generally used alternatives.

[Betty]

As a plain font, I had a thing with calibri for awhile.

Maiandra is a nice happy simply font that has a little personality but isn't overly floofy.

Berlin Sans too.

I don't use those fonts to print up letters or documents though. More with signage, website headlines etc.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Betty

As a plain font, I had a thing with calibri for awhile.

Maiandra is a nice happy simply font that has a little personality but isn't overly floofy.

We recently got the Office 07 upgrade at work and I dig Calibri as a default. I never liked Times at all.

I <3 EH! Awesome linkage.

[bewitched]

I've always liked Georgia.

Boring...but there it is.


I really like its name origin :

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The typeface is named after a tabloid headline titled "Alien heads found in Georgia."

I also quite like Verdana.

I could really get into the name origin aspect of fonts:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The name "Verdana" is based on a mix of verdant (something green, as in the Seattle area and the Evergreen state, Washington), and Ana (the name of Howlett's eldest daughter).

[innerSpaceman]

I use Arial as my default, but I hate the "unisex" quotation marks, like the ones I just used.

If I need quotation marks, I want proper ones and I'll switch to Times Roman as default.

[Gemini Cricket]

I like the way Courier New looks. It looks like a typewriter font.

Oh and Kevy? Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype Palatino Linotype! Linotype Linotype Linotype Linotype Linotype!