Workflow: Freelance» Fonts

TypeTalk: Supersize My Font Families, Please!

Fonts — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:49:15 +0000

Gone are the days when font choices were regular, italic, and bold. Today you can use super families of fonts that contain variations in width, weight, style, and more. Here are some tips for using super families.

Fonts on Friday: Influenced by the ’70s

Fonts — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:33:29 +0000

Bookmania and Herbie

Fonts on Friday: Crafty Handmade Fonts

Fonts — Fri, 11 May 2012 23:03:25 +0000

Knit, Sown, Grown, Bent, and more!

Type How-To: A River Runs Through It

Fonts — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:37:46 +0000

Rivers are eye-catching cracks in text formed by meandering trails of word spaces running from one line to the next. Here’s why they happen, how to avoid them, and how to fix them.

Type How-to: A River Runs Through It

Fonts — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:08:16 +0000

Rivers are eye-catching cracks in text formed by meandering trails of word spaces running from one line to the next. Here’s why they happen, how to avoid them, and how to fix them.

Font Bureau’s Readability Series Goes Retail

Fonts — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:14:23 +0000

Previously only available to private clients, now available to public

Don Quixote, Wilco, Illustrator, Veer — and You

Fonts — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:30:51 +0000

T-shirt design contest with all of the above will benefit non-profit.

Fonts on Friday: Food Fonts

Fonts — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:13:08 +0000

It's the real thing: cookies, chocolate, candy, pasta, and soup!

Extensis Updates Suitcase Fusion

Fonts — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:37:54 +0000

Version includes new browsing panels

TypeTalk: Copy Editing and Proofreading

Fonts — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:08:46 +0000

Copyediting and proofreading are important to the integrity of the production of any publishing project, yet the two are often confused. What's the difference between copy editing and proofreading? What does each task entail? And why do they matter?

TypeTalk: Investigating Insouciant

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:34 +0000

On the surface, James Montalbano's Insouciant font is a charming, sprightly typeface that belies the technical rigor required to create it. Here Montalbano explains how this 10-weight family came to be and why upright script faces are challenging to design.

Scanning Around With Gene: Typographic Treasure from the Bottom of the Box

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:32 +0000

There they were, at the bottom of a poorly marked box: a series of American Printer magazines from 1946, complete with a five-part primer on how to set good type. In this typographic treasure trove, we learn that many lessons are timeless.

Fonts on Friday: Three Indie Typefaces to Add to Your Collection

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:31 +0000

Abraham Lincoln, L.C. Smith, and Malleable Grotesque

Fonts on Friday: Three indie typefaces to add to your collection

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:29 +0000

Abraham Lincoln, L.C. Smith, and Malleable Grotesque

A Font "Dating" Game

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:28 +0000

Test your skills as a type matchmaker.

Fonts on Friday: Geometry and Line

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:27 +0000

Frustro, Lineo, and Moav

Case Study: Designing a New Logo

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:25 +0000

What goes into developing a new typographic logo? Where do you start? How do you know what works — and what doesn't? Follow along as the company Extensis refreshes its branding with a new logotype.

The "Original" Helvetica

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:23 +0000

Font Bureau releases Neue Haas Grotesk

Fonts on Friday: Decorative Display Type

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:21 +0000

Fancy Antique Display, Metropolis 1920, Muirside

Fonts on Friday: Nothing Fancy

Fonts — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:40:20 +0000

Regular and Prosto

InDesign How-to: Balance Columns with Vertical Justification

Fonts — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:53:53 +0000

You need to align type to a baseline grid but you don't want any orphans. Making columns of type line up in InDesign is the job of vertical justification. Here’s how to make it work for you.

Robert Slimbach: Type Designer for the Digital Age

Fonts — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:18:19 +0000

Influential font "Original" celebrates 25 years at Adobe.

Scanning Around With Gene: A Printed “Teaching Machine” from 1894

Fonts — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:42:06 +0000

Even though teaching has changed considerably since the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, some basics remain the same. One thing that's changed, however, is the graphic design of teaching tools. Here’s a look at a series of large-format posters designed to help teach math skills to young students.

Linotype Film Premieres in NY, Travels to Other Screens

Fonts — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:42:00 +0000

This type-centric documentary comes to San Francisco on February 21 and Seattle on March 7.

TypeTalk: The Anatomy of a Character

Fonts — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:28:53 +0000

You've known the names of letters and numbers since you were a little kid. But did you realize that every part of those characters have names, too? Knowing this terminology will help you better understand typefaces and communicate about design. Now you can download a high-res PDF of the anatomy chart, too!

Scanning Around With Gene: Best in the West Graphics, 1970

Fonts — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:37:17 +0000

When advertising people judge their own, the results are always interesting. The 27th Annual Portfolio of the Art Directors Club of Los Angeles, published in 1970, revealed four trends of the time.

What’s That Web Font?

Fonts — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:04:40 +0000

WhatFont is a free tool that works with your Web browser to identify webfonts.

When It’s Safe to Use Free Fonts

Fonts — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:01:58 +0000

Type foundry FontShop explains the ins and outs of font licensing in a free, downloadable guide.

Type Is Everywhere

Fonts — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:20:45 +0000

Help to preserve the vernacular typography that makes a place unique by supporting this Kickstarter project.

TypeTalk: Hand-Drawn Type

Fonts — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:10:12 +0000

When you want your work to stand out, swap a font for hand-drawn letters.

Try These Type Webinars from Ilene Strizver

Fonts — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:55:56 +0000

If your print or online projects use type, you can benefit from this series of webinars designed by CreativePro.com columnist and type expert Ilene Strizver.

Hand-Lettering Lovers, Rejoice

Fonts — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:26:13 +0000

Lisa Congdon (known for her Collection a Day and her work as an illustrator/artist) is at it again. She's committed to creating and posting an example of hand lettering for every day in 2012.

Daily Drawings Reach One Thousand

Fonts — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:59:18 +0000

Professional illustrator/designer Chris Piascik has drawn something every weekday for the last four years. The project has brought him personal and professional satisfaction, and soon there'll even be a book compiling all 1,000 of the daily drawings, many of which are heavy on type. Take a look.

Starry, Starry Type

Fonts — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:46:34 +0000

Gravilux 2.0 is an app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that lets you render text in stars and then affect that text with the gravitational forces of an alternate univers. It's art, it's a game, it's Gravilux!

Free For All: Give Yourself These Gifts

Fonts — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:02:14 +0000

Ring in the New Year with this jolly collection of goodwill to creative freebies, including photo mosaic software, fonts, stock photos, print-your-own graph paper, and inspiring 2012 desktop and tablet wallpapers.

TypeTalk: The Dos and Don’ts of Type in Motion

Fonts — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:59:11 +0000

Type has gone multimedia, appearing in many forms beyond its traditional role. Now it's in motion on websites, commercials, movie titles, video games, and more. These tips will help you create type in motion that will attract and hold your viewers' attention.

2011 Holiday Gift Guide

Fonts — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:46:08 +0000

Flummoxed by what to buy for the creative professional on your gift list? Perhaps one of the items in the 2011 CreativePro.com Holiday Gift Guide will do the trick.

Five Tips for Choosing the Best Webfonts

Fonts — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:18:00 +0000

Learn how to evaluate typeface readability, legibility, optimization, character set, and weight and thickness variety when choosing fonts for a website. Plus, I'll throw in a bonus tip!

Get to Know InDesign’s Glyphs Panel

Fonts — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:36:21 +0000

Some people never even open InDesign's Glyphs panel, and that's a shame. It can reveal alternate characters in your typefaces; help you quickly select and enter unusual characters, such as currency or math symbols; and find and change glyphs instantly no matter how long your document is.

European Design Conference Comes to America

Fonts — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:36:20 +0000

The first TYPO conference held in the United States will be in San Francisco on April 5 and 6, 2012.

What Do You Think of the Creative Cloud?

Fonts — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:25:59 +0000

Adobe's pushing a subscription model for its software and services, sweetening the deal with access to its Touch apps, webfonts, tablet publishing, and 18 desktop applications. But is it right for you?

Photoshop Plug-in Adds Google Webfonts

Fonts — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:11:09 +0000

The Extensis WebInk Web Font plug-in for Photoshop expands its offering with 288 webfonts from Google.

TypeTalk: Font Games Galore

Fonts — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:09:36 +0000

It's OK to play with your type; in fact, it's fun! Just don't assume that professional typographers agree with all of the supposedly correct answers to these font games.

Best of the Blogs: November 4, 2011

Fonts — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:42:41 +0000

This circumnavigation of the blogosphere includes posts about fonts (best, worst, and missing), color correction (Photoshop curves and/or levels), paper (handmade and mill run), printers (desktop and press), color calibration (monitor and printer), and an impressive if controversial demo of photo-deblurring technology. Plus, job hunting tips and product how-tos.

Make Monograms the Easy Way

Fonts — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:46:47 +0000

Inexpensive fonts let you create custom monograms and cyphers from any letter combination. The styles range from traditional to childlike.

Be a Type Designer in New Game

Fonts — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:00:18 +0000

These font games are not just fun--they're educational! At least, that's what you can tell yourself when you realize you've been playing them for an hour.

The Seven Lively Sins: Try These InDesign Type Effects

Fonts — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:30:10 +0000

Some people think it’s a sin to alter a typeface. But I say that, used with skill and discretion, InDesign's transparency effects can make your type more lively.

TypeTalk: Smart Punctuation on the Web

Fonts — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:14:47 +0000

Is it acceptable to lower your print design standards when your type appears on the Web?

Free For All: Design and Photography Freebies

Fonts — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:32:21 +0000

Here's how to get 10 InDesign table styles, 12 sans serif fonts, 13 letterpress Photoshop layer styles, and 3 color reference infographics. And none of them will cost you a thing!

What You Need to Know About Webfonts: Part 2

Fonts — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:44:29 +0000

Don't limit your web designs to the same five fonts everyone has on their systems. Part 1 of this series introduced you to @font-face basics. Part 2 will steer you through webfonts' legal complexities so you can get the best fonts for your sites while staying on the right side of the law.