is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. Text is composed to create a readable, coherent, and visually satisfying whole.
2
votes
2answers
176 views
Pairing a font with a tahoma as display font
For branding matters, I need to use tahoma as a display font (for all headlines).
I know, I know, it's a body text font meant only for screens: I don't really have a choice there.
I am having a hard ...
4
votes
3answers
73 views
Does anyone know of any font families that 6, 9, 8, 0 look the same upside down as right side up?
Does anyone know of any font families that 6, 9, 8, 0 look exactly the same upside down as right side up? The 6 upside down would look like 9 and vice-verse. Thanks!
7
votes
1answer
192 views
Font design and typographic choices for dyslexic readers?
I recently stumbled on a font designed specifically for dyslexic readers (OpenDyslexic). It explains how it works like so:
Letters have heavy weighted bottoms to add a kind of "gravity" to each ...
3
votes
3answers
191 views
What is this style of text-as-image called?
I'm seeing a trend (especially on pinterest) of these posters where the image and subject is the text. THe text itself isn't really that important either, it's mainly the typefaces used and ...
1
vote
1answer
168 views
Kerning problem with Fontographer 5
I configured my font's kerning for every possible letter combination in Fontographer 5 and when I preview it from there, everything is as it should be, but when I generate the font files (TTF and OTF) ...
4
votes
3answers
257 views
On which sites can I sell fonts I've created?
I made a typeface that I would like to sell non-exclusively on several online stores. I have been searching and found a few nice outlets so far.
What are the font shops you know of? Where do you ...
0
votes
2answers
62 views
Why hasn't Adobe built a font feature into illustrator yet? [closed]
It seems that Illustrator is the flavor of choice when designing typefaces. Users seem to have a strong grasp on Illustrator and prefer the design tools in the software over others. Typography is a ...
4
votes
3answers
546 views
What are the more respected sans serif fonts that come standard on most computers?
I've been tasked with making a powerpoint theme for the company I work for and one of the requirements is that it uses a font that comes standard with most computers. What are some of the built-in ...
6
votes
2answers
105 views
Sans serif with long descenders
I am need of a typeface with descenders that match or come close to the x-height. Can you recommend some?
System fonts or free fonts would be ideal.
2
votes
1answer
55 views
Footnote/Endnote reference characters before or after an ellipsis?
I was checking guidance on where to put footnote or endnote reference characters relative to punctuation and found a really clear answer for everything except an ellipsis.
It's pretty unlikely and ...
2
votes
1answer
58 views
CharterBT/CMSans complementary monospaced font
I am writing a technical documentation in LaTeX which will also include code listings and in-text keywords set in Monospace. After reading this post i chose a combination of CharterBT for text and ...
4
votes
2answers
880 views
Footnote/Endnote references before or after punctuation? (comma, full stop/period, semi-colon…)
Simple question: what's the convention (or, if there's disagreement, guiding principles) for where to place reference, footnote and endnote numbers that apply to a clause leading up to a punctuation ...
7
votes
1answer
115 views
Symbols “degrees” and “degrees centigrade”: proper spacing
For mathematical and physical units, usually there is a thin space between the number and the unit, in the LaTeX syntax for example $1008\,\mathrm{kPa}$.
However, I feel that angular degrees (e.g. ...
4
votes
3answers
207 views
What are the historical origins of Helvetica?
This issue of a typeface's heritage is of particular interest when attempting to pair faces. The nuances of related faces tend to harmonize well, whether that relation is grounded in history or the ...
8
votes
1answer
170 views
Which is easier on the eyes: dark-on-light or light-on-dark?
While working on my latest website, I started actually wondering if what I learned in grade school was true. I've been taught that programs like Word default to use a white background with black text ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Different Logo Colors for Different Uses, Appropriate?
I am finalizing the last step of my logo redesign process.
Is it ok not to have a regular color when presenting my logo?
I am thinking about having a defined list of colors for different use cases ...
6
votes
3answers
181 views
Recommended column width for text reading, digital vs printed
Coming form a digital background, I have often read different kinds of suggestions (for example 35-50 ems) for how wide a column of body text should be to still maintain a good readability.
Is there ...
3
votes
3answers
1k views
How to subtract text from a shape in Illustrator?
So I've made a rectangle, and I want to cut some text out of it, so that the text will appear as the background pattern.
I expected to be able to achieve this by selecting the rectangle and the ...
6
votes
3answers
182 views
Do you have a “formula” for the webfont vs graphic type threshold?
Disclaimer:
I realize there is not a perfect "formula" for this question. I'm looking for your experiential working practices. If you don't have any, I won't hold it against you.
Over the last ...
5
votes
2answers
129 views
Convert OpenType (PostScript flavor) to OpenType (TrueType flavor)
I want to convert a OpenType (PostScript flavor) font to an OpenType (TrueType flavor) font. This is because Office Word cannot make pdf´s using a OpenType (PostScript flavor) font. To make it more ...
4
votes
1answer
127 views
Blackletter fonts supporting long s and r rotunda?
I'm doing up a document in the style of the earliest printed documents. For this, I need to find a blackletter font that supports long s « ſ » and r rotunda « ꝛ ».
Are there any such fonts out ...
4
votes
2answers
97 views
Considerations when using multiple font faces (on webpage or CD cover)
I’m experimenting with fonts for learning purposes, and I noticed that using only one font type looks many times plain, but using more can easily make a mess out of my webpage and CD cover (these are ...
9
votes
3answers
186 views
Principles of Typography for different languages
Sometimes German students ask me how to do the typesetting of documents in English, French or Spanish. I'm not able to help them because I never learned to speak or write French or Spanish.
...
3
votes
1answer
86 views
How to add catchwords using InDesign
Many books before 1800 used a feature called catchwords, repeating the first word of the page at the bottom of the previous page. Wikipedia has a small article on them and there's a good question ...
15
votes
1answer
163 views
What's the term used when the first word of one page is repeated at the end of the previous page?
There's a common feature in old typography where the first word of a page is repeated at the end of the previous page, usually right-aligned on a line by itself. This book from 1759 shows this ...
8
votes
2answers
396 views
Footnote typographic conventions
Are there any typographic conventions/advice relating to footnotes?
For example:
When should numbers be used and when symbols?
Should the footnote symbol be superscript in the body text and at the ...
4
votes
4answers
150 views
What page numbering conventions are there for front matters (prelims) of books?
When a book uses arabic page numbering, the usual habit is to treat the front cover as a page number 1, and start the book itself by page number 3. However, sometimes the front-matter of the book is ...
3
votes
2answers
70 views
Back-matter numbering
It is a given fact that I cannot number the appendicies (i.e., back-matter) in my works/book by continuing the arabic numbering from the main-matter. The reason is that the main-matter numbering is ...
11
votes
1answer
153 views
What considerations are there in designing pixel fonts?
I'm designing monospace pixel fonts for a game, and so far I've only been able to work with extremely small sizes (largest I've managed is 5x9) because those ones are the easiest to try and err with. ...
8
votes
2answers
204 views
What are the best practices and techniques to fix rags?
What would be the best practices to fix the rags on a left aligned text for print.
Besides breaking lines and hyphenations, should you use tracking, and if so how much.
Also, how would you judged a ...
3
votes
1answer
47 views
What are diacritical marks?
I've seen symbols with accents which are often referred to as diacritical marks.
But what are they exactly? How many such accents even exist? And how do current typography tools (fonts, word ...
4
votes
3answers
4k views
Is there a way to sort fonts inside Photoshop, as “serif,” “sans-serif,” “script,” etc.?
In my years as a graphic designer (and now web designer and developer,) I've acquired a great number of fonts; inasmuch as backing them up was a responsibility paramount attendant upon formatting my ...
9
votes
1answer
197 views
What's the practical difference between a 'glyph' and a 'character'?
I saw this question on the Typography site proposal and it bugged me that I didn't know the answer. I'd always treated 'glyph' and 'character' as interchangable.
After reading an explanation on the ...
4
votes
3answers
3k views
What can I do with AFM - Adobe font metrics file?
I received zip containing font in .afm format. Is this some sort of source-code of a font that can be converted TTF/OTF or so?
How can I actually read and use this file?
2
votes
1answer
147 views
Free font similar to Viga with Polish characters?
I'm looking for a font similar to Viga with Polish characters (Latin), preferably one from Google Web Fonts.
1
vote
1answer
152 views
Vector pasting in wrong spot / Font Lab and Illustrator
I built out some shapes to test out a font icon idea.
I drew them in Illustrator. I set my art-board to pt at 1000 x 1000.
I filled the objects and moved the ruler so that 0 was the baseline.
From ...
8
votes
1answer
172 views
Can the end of double spacing after periods be dated?
From this Slate article:
Hundreds of years ago some typesetters would end sentences with a double space, others would use a single space, and a few renegades would use three or four spaces. ...
4
votes
4answers
176 views
Freely available old-style serif fonts with multiple weights
When I typeset text, I love to be able to choose from a large array of different weights (and, if possible, expansions). Having light and semi-bold variants in addition to the regular and bold weights ...
5
votes
4answers
80 views
Proper typesetting of right-to-left text in overall left-to-right context
Screenshot taken from a popular game (LetterPress), where a user has his name in a right-to-left script (which looks like arabic).
This typesetting is clearly surprising, as the name is out of line ...
12
votes
3answers
522 views
Why do we still use points as a measurement of type size?
I'm in the UK, which uses metric units for pretty much everything now except road distances and beer (obviously best kept apart).
Page sizes have been metric here and in most of the rest of the world ...
2
votes
3answers
360 views
How do I combine bold, italic and regular versions of a typeface so they are grouped together in application font selection menus?
In Fontographer 5, I have made more versions of the same typeface (regular, italic and bold), but they are separate files.
How can I make them be one unified file and that when writing in a program ...
10
votes
4answers
736 views
Do discretionary ligatures hold any other purpose than visual?
Discretionary ligatures are non-standard ligatures such as:
st and ct in Atlantica LF font
Are they purely visual or is there any other reasoning to back it up? Psychological? Letter-press related? ...
17
votes
6answers
1k views
“Serifs improve fast, easy readability for long text” - myth or truth?
It's an old question, but an important one. Let's see if we can get a good, nuanced, ideally evidence-based answer.
So, old-school wisdom (certainly, how I was taught back in the day) says that serif ...
1
vote
4answers
3k views
What's the best way to make a curly brace used for grouping items together?
Many documents (especially older ones) use what looks like a curly brace { to join multiple elements together. Here's an example of this to illustrate programming code, and here's a thread about ...
4
votes
1answer
149 views
Hyphenation on many line breaks
Sometimes, word processors screw up hyphenation by hyphenating a series of consecutive lines. This just happened to me in a spectacular way:
What's most annoying in the above case is ...
5
votes
2answers
112 views
Is this an effect or a type of font?
I have seen a lot this type of fonts (the ones in the bar). It is a relief effect or the font is just like that?
0
votes
4answers
108 views
Cognitive Science-Related Font?
Looking for fonts that have anything to do with cognitive science. E.g., a type that somehow evokes either brains, thoughts, science, biology, psychology, connectionist networks, mind, etc. Anyone ...
7
votes
2answers
388 views
How does random choice of alternate characters work in OpenType fonts?
I have a question similar to “Writing text with character variations”: I would like to create a casual hand-written-style font, that reproduces the natural variety between occurrences of the same ...
5
votes
4answers
168 views
Does the difference between a 'font' and a 'typeface' subside?
Originally, the typeface is a particular design of type, while a font is a type in a particular size and weight. In short, a typeface usually gathers many fonts.
Nowadays, with digit design of ...
0
votes
1answer
227 views
Text hyphenation in iOS apps
I'm not sure if there are any typography gurus here that might be able to answer this question, but I don't know where else to look. I'm looking to add text hyphenation into one of my projects, and ...
