PS End of an Era
PostScript was tried and true, and I kind of figured it would be around forever. At least that was the story, I was telling myself until about a year ago, when I spotted the first sign of the impending doom.
Typography, Twitter, and Trump
I spend my day thinking about typography. Well, maybe not all day—but I do think about it a lot. That is what designers (are supposed to) do. The general public, not so much. But like good editing, and good writing, well-thought-out typography makes everyone’s life a bit nicer and a bit easier. And if copy […]
A Font of Their Own
Where do alphabets come from? Some alphabets were developed by committee. The Cyrillic alphabet was produced by what was basically a medieval think tank and it used by languages with a Slavic origin or a strong Slavic influence. According to Wikipedia, it is one of the most-used writing systems. And the Korean alphabet, created during […]
The Font We Love to Hate
Comic Sans is the typeface that designers love to hate. And designers hate Comic Sans probably for the very same reasons that the general public loves it. It looks different. It is fun and playful. It is a friendly, approachable font that can be used for anything. And that anything part is a big reason […]
The Man Who Invented Italics
For most of recorded human history, human history (and everything else) was recorded mostly by hand. That changed around 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable-type printing press. Suddenly the written word became a whole lot more accessible. Aldus Manutius was an early pioneer in moveable-type printing. As this article from Smithsonian explains, he designed […]
A Life in Typefaces
No, not my life—that will be an exercise for another day—Mathew Carter’s life. Since the beginning of written history, the written word has been a product of its times from classic Roman inscriptions carved into marble to the elegant brushstrokes of medieval monks. From the innovation of moveable type that made the printing of Gutenberg’s […]
One Font To Rule Them All
When the definitive history of the twentieth century is written, I suspect that it will be typeset in Helvetica—the definitive font of the last century. Helvetica solidly occupies typeface neutral territory, kind of a Switzerland of typography. (That seems appropriate since the Latin name for Switzerland is Helvetica.) Like a strand of pearls that look right […]
Typography Terms
Back in the dark ages when I was studying graphic design in school, no one outside of the “industry” knew squat about typography. Then the Mac appeared on the horizon and all of the sudden complete novices were throwing around terms like “font” and “point size.” Now pretty much everyone knows a little bit about […]
Punctuation Marks
I spend much of my day working with type. Even with only a few punctuation marks to consider (like periods, commas, dashes, and the often misunderstood semicolon), I do worry if I am punctuating copy correctly. And what if a few more marks where added to the mix…. So when I saw “8 Punctuation Marks That […]