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The most popular Services mentioned in /r/typography:
Google Fonts
Font Squirrel
Glyphs
Behance
Adobe Fonts
Fontself Maker for Illustrator & Photoshop
WhatTheFont
Dribbble
FontStruct
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Creative Market
BirdFont
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The most popular reviews in /r/typography:
Not sure about the typefaces, but that helmet is the work of Justin Pervorse which can be seen here or on his business card in my hand here. So, I hope you're just using it as a mock up and not claiming it's your own work.
FontSquirrel has it. I haven't utilized it too much yet, but some of the glyphs are really harsh - sharp edges and less-rounded corners than you might expect. I haven't tried the Mono version as a screen font, but that might be where its value is.
Neue Helvetica Neue it isn't.
This may not be what you are looking for (or too obvious), but I think Josef Albers' "Interaction of Color" is a staple for anyone working in art or design.
I know you said no books but I had to jump in with this suggestion: Logo Modernism by Jens Muller. It's $53 and a massive heavy book--if he's a student he probably doesn't have it. I just got it this year and it felt like an ultimate luxury gift to buy myself. Friends love looking through it when they come over, too! (If by chance he already has it he could always exchange it, but if he doesn't have it, he'll cherish it.)
Avenir is my favourite – very elegant but also versatile. I also quite like Josefin Sans, and I think it could work well for a jewellery brand such as yours.
The book is Dark Age by Pierce Brown
Using Quicksand for the entire page isn't a bad route but you should at least add some variation throughout the page. Quicksand has four weights, so make use of them. For instance, you could set your headers in the light weight at a large size and your body sections in bold.
Also, whenever you're using a Google font for something, the specimen page on Google Fonts tends to include font pairing options at the bottom. Admittedly, they're not always the best choice or can be a bit standard, but it's at least a starting point. In the case of Quicksand, it lists Open Sans, Roboto, Lato, Oswald, and Raleway. I wouldn't use Oswald though. Raleway and Open Sans would look nice though.
Here's a crowdsourced directory of Black and African type designers that will hopefully help you find what you're looking for. I think you need to have a Notion account to view it?
The Vocal foundry might also be aligned with your client's mission but I'm not sure how many typefaces are specifically by female designers.
I'm a developer and I'm not going to get into how the type could be BETTER served, but I will say this. You're putting a huge emphasis on something that's going to look very different once you render it in a browser, let alone 5 different browsers / 3 different OS'.
That said, Adobe Caslon isn't even available across a multitude of Operating Systems, and as a fallback you'd have to specify an alternate serif. What I would suggest instead is setting up an account here to serve your type.
TypeKit has also solved rendering issues I've had in the past. Something about Windows font rendering is just awful.
– Thinking with Type, Ellen Lupton
– <em>Detail in typography</em>, Jost Hochuli (small well-made book about micro-typography)
– Modern Typography, Robin Kinross (about history of typography, just in case you want to get deeper —might be a bit hard to read)
Edit: plus the previously mentionned book of R. Bringhurst
Ellen Lupton's "Thinking with Type" is a great place to start. It's the book my type teacher had us all get for the class and it is a very easy and informative place to start.
Have you heard the phrase "Winner, winner, chicken dinner"?
Din can be a winner when choosing a typeface at times so that phrase always crosses my mind when I finally decide to go with it. It's also a slight pun which is fun!
This movie recently used the phrase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0PuqYB0_UI
But it has been around for quite a while.
Origins: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_meaning_behind_the_phrase_Winner_Winner_Chicken_Dinner
"Thinking with Type"
It is easily my favourite comprehensive intro to typography. I found out after I finished it that it's used as a textbook in quite a few design programs, at least in Canada. Edit: Spelling
I use AMP Font Viewer. It lets you install fonts temporarily only when you're using them so you don't clog up your system files with thousands of fonts you only use some of the time.
I can't tell you the name of this font, but a font, very similar to this one, is called "this". It's free so you can't go wrong with it.
Also, Comic Relief: http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/comic-relief "Comic Relief is a typeface designed to be metrically equivalent to the popular Comic Sans MS. Comic Relief can be used in place of Comic Sans MS without having to move, resize, or reset any part of the copy. Comic Relief is freely available via loudifier.com/comic-relief as a .ttf, FontForge .sfd project, and as a web-ready @font-face kit. It is copylefted using the SIL Open Font License, so feel free to use it, modify it, or embed it as you see fit."
Important: Critique/Suggestions required/welcomed (forgot to said)
Here's a Greek extension I make for Varela Round. This is made by borrowing (stealing?) other parts of the font and drawing them myself. This is to be used with other fonts but currently I'll leave this for Varela Round.
Here's the font file. (expires in 7 days)
This font is released under the same license as Varela Round, i.e. SIL Open Font License. Critiques and modifications are welcomed as I'm still new to making fonts (this is my first time).
P/S: Incomplete basic Cyrillic set is in the font file too. You can take a view and give critiques/suggestions for those too.
PP/S: I don't speak Greek or Cyrillic so I definitely need help on this n the upcoming Cyrillic expansion, thanks!
It's a bit played out now, but Proxima Nova was a big favourite of mine for a long time. But the lowercase a... I just have a hard time with how modulated the strokes that meet the stem are. Great in body text, but man I can't help thinking it looks off sometimes. Also I don't like the lower terminal of the question mark.
Try Proxima Nova, Alégre, BStyle, Copper Canyon, Corporate, Franchise, Futura, Prohibition, Good Headline Pro Condensed, Libel Suit, Museo Sans, Akzidenz Grotesk, Gotham, Open Sans, Nord, Ostrich Sans, Oswald, Plakative Grotesk, Rakesly, Port McKenzie, Steelfish, Tempo, Trade Gothic, Twentieth Century, Utility...and then there's always Helvetica.
Most of those are either free (commercially) or part of Typekit.
I'm a big fan of condensed gothic sans-serifs.
I like it the way it is and I think the people who have made tweaks here only made it worse.
As far as what body font to pair with it, I think just keep it simple OP. Some sort of clean sans serif could be fine. Or maybe a fun serif that's a little chunky like Skolar: https://typekit.com/fonts/skolar-web
Linotype FontExplorer has a server client program. FontExplorer X Server
I haven't used the server edition myself, but I think their stand alone font management program is the best.
Thinking with Type is a great book, but I'm more of a Bringhurst fan - The Elements of Typographic Style is my recommendation.
Typography professor here. My text is Lupton's Thinking with Type. But check out the website, as most everything in the book is there. For an AWESOME, but dry resource, check out Designing With Type.
The overarching theme in type is "make it easy to read." Is it easy to read? Good, you understand the fundamentals, NOW you can play around.
Change the alignment of the cells with the prices in to the one where it aligns relative to the point. I think its called decimal but don't recall exactly.
That's mostly about emoji, rather than dingbats like the ones in OP's title, but there's begun to be some overlap between the two. Certain characters have both an "emoji form" (usually displayed as a color graphic) and a "text form". One or the other can be specified using an invisible character. You may recall how one of those characters was being inserted by the autocorrect engine on a previous version of iOS when users tried to write the word "I", causing it to appear incorrectly in some environments.
This is amazing. I'd love to get my hands on something like this. Where did you find it at?
Turns out if you live near any of these places, you could check it out. http://www.worldcat.org/title/manuale-dellarchitetto/oclc/715269814
I've used it on a few projects. It's a nice, modern looking humanist font. It can look a bit sharp/stiff/angular I guess, the way the lowercase e ends in a vertical edge for example. If you're using Typekit, take a look at Europa as an alternative; a bit more geometric, which I think has better chances of not looking outdated in the long term.
Fontself - it's an Illustrator plugin that let's you literally drag and drop letterforms over and it pretty much does all the hard work for you. It's really an amazing piece of work, that they're still adding features too, that the community ask for.
You can get a 10% discount with this referral link if you're interested.
Developer of Typeface here—awesome to see the app recommended on my daily reddit browse, thanks! :)
Just to add to this: there is a free trial so you can try the Finding Duplicates feature on your font library. You can switch between ‘exact’ duplicates (equal file, different name/location) or ‘regular’ duplicates (fonts that share the same PostScript name, but may be different kind). The app also lets you automatically select fonts for removal, so you can get rid of all duplicates right away if you want.
Hope it’s the right tool to bring some order to the 70K font chaos. Full disclosure: I’m totally spending the money I get from app purchases on new fonts.
An open source software with a shitty UI, no way?!
More seriously, not really. Well maybe you can try Birdfont but usually FontForge is regarded as the most complete free editor. Birdfont looks more simple so it might work for you, I don’t know much about it.
Google Fonts has over 800 typefaces that are open source and professionally designed. What's more, they even suggest pairings on each typeface's page. Highly recommend checking it out.
Not all free fonts and font trends are bad. Instead learn to think for yourself typographically.google fonts and lost type co-op for example are sources of free fonts that are high quality and made by professionals. I would avoid dafont.com for the most part however.
From what i can tell, there are quite a few examples of your kerning being ‘off’. I’ll try and call some of out:
- Very first line: TH E
- Second line: I think your ‘E’ should be a bit closer to the ‘B’.
- Future: Space between ‘U’ and ‘R’ is a little too big.
- create: ‘c’ and ‘r’ are too close / ‘r’ and ‘e’ too far off.
Additionally i think there are simply too many fonts used and using Futura for “Future” is what some might call a lack of typographic imagination (LTypI), although it might even fit here.
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton A fun, metalinguistic book that covers details and dos & don'ts on a funny note. Very illustrative, great for beginners.
Just My Type by Simon Garfield Essentially a book about fonts. Although it does not cover typography as a composition element, I found it incredibly interesting and a great read. Garfield's sarcastic way of writing, along with knowing the story behind fonts and why they're they way they are is absolutely brilliant!
Practical Typography by Matthew Butterick It's not even a book, it's a website! You can check it at http://practicaltypography.com and be greatly pleased by this former lawyer way of presenting type. The page itself is a masterpiece, very well typeset and only helps show off the quality content lying inside. I highly recommend devouring this one right away.
Good job for making this an opportunity to learn and let others learn!
I'm not an expert but type is sort of my specialty. Nevertheless, hope I can help.
First, the first glance, obvious stuff: alignment is uncertain and type hierarchy and contrast are vague, typeface selection and pairing needs improvement and limitation (3 at the max).
So, typography is about legibility and leading the reader's eyes throughout the flyer. With the three errors I mentioned, we already lose the attention of the reader because there's no clear starting point. Remember that with flyers, you read not like a book from top to bottom, but you glance and be led by the factors I mentioned.
For type-heavy work like this, it helps a lot to read the whole thing out loud. Those that are loud-sounding would be the biggest, and the rest, their respective sizes.
Others: clearspace, kerning, leading. Meaning, the elements need their space to breathe. Faux styles/weights are a big no-no, too. If the font doesn't come with a style/weight that you want, avoid forcing it and find another that actually has it.
Always consider the actual size of what you create so you can check the legibility. Another big help (that can possibly change the way you design) is learning about white space. This pretty much helps you avoid a lot of errors!
If you haven't come across this yet, Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton is a great resource.
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lipton.
Also, please don't get into typography thinking that because it's the topic du jour that it's the secret to being a good designer. It's one skill amongst thousands. Studying typography exclusively to become a better designer is like studying aerodynamics to become a better racecar driver.
All of the fonts on Google fonts are open to modification and have a GitHub repository where you can make an inquiry to the designer.
https://fonts.google.com/?subset=hebrew
I’d suggest picking one you like and reaching out to the designer with what you’d like done.
> The purpose, besides being a personal exploration of letterforms, is to . . . investigate the essence of the brand and test the strength of their associations.
~ https://www.behance.net/gallery/24710353/Brand-by-Hand-An-experimental-lettering-project
Thanks, it's Vast Shadow. Maybe specifying the weight will help, I'll try that.
In terms of different browsers rendering differently, there's differences, but obviously I'm comparing it to what it looks like on the G-fonts site, also in Chrome – so there's no reason I shouldn't be able to match that. I suspect it's something I'm doing wrong in the (messy) CSS.
Looks like your vertical metrics are not set properly. The selection of s usually drawn between ascender and descender lines.
An article on how to set vertical metrics.
I literally searched for "Exo font" and both the first and second link include the license terms for the font.
You're probably fine for commercial use.
~~To whomever may wish to download without subscribing, this is the direct link.~~
EDIT: u/ZachWinterton—OP—asked real ~~salty~~ nice for me to remove the direct link, so I’m doing that for the sake of not being a pain. But I’m going to leave here the link for a working disposable email provider that isn’t blacklisted, Temp Mail, so that people have the right of not giving their email to a random list.
To anybody reading this: if you try getting the font with the disposable I linked to and you get blocked (Oops, something went wrong), DM me and I’ll put the direct link back here.
Some textbooks are listed in the sidebar ("Textbooks suggested by..."). Bringhurst is kind of the Bible (IMO), but I think maybe "Thinking with Type" might be better for a grab-and-go kind of quick download.
I feel you dude. I'm sure there's an open-source program around that can do it though.
Edit: Here's a Mashable article I found. Personally, I'm all about saving money.
Legally, I think that means that even if someone makes a short document that embeds the fonts, they have to attribute the font to you. OFL is specifically designed for fonts, and handles embedding specifically, which most licenses (not designed for fonts) do not mention, leaving an undesired gray area.
Also, Creative Commons specifically recommends against using their licenses for software. (under US law, ttfs are considered “software” IIRC because they can include hinting instructions)
There’s a little bit more here, which describes the unintended consequences of licensing fonts under the GNU GPL.
Here's a link to the site: https://msol.io/blog/tech/2015/03/10/how-i-doubled-my-internet-speed-with-openwrt/
I took a screenshot because in the discussion on HN some people experienced different "effects", but it appeared more or less the same for me in FF and Chrome.
I looked up Lato Semibold Regular and this definitely isn't built into the typeface. I also skimmed the styles in the property inspector and couldn't figure out what was causing it.
NewsReader is your best bet here. Modern interpretation of XVIth century typefaces, made for continuous reading on screen and most importantly, of professional quality (which is not that common on Googlefonts). And there is also a lot of weights available and even optical sizes which is perfect for your use.
Interesting observation. I know there's a few versions of Baskerville. The versions I use don't have the curly R. However, I've just stumbled across the Baskervville (note the double 'v') font on Google Fonts, which does have the curly R... https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Baskervville
The font seems to be a redrawn of a redraw. Now, if it would have non-aligning old style numerals, I'd be very happy! (Baskerville is one of my fav's!)... It does!
This and actually being thoughtful with your type choices and pairings. Some of it is taste, some of it is just bad bad bad type choices.
Someone that I frequently reference and respect for her type layouts — https://dribbble.com/bethanyheck
Libre Baskerville is quite nice.
IBM Plex Serif is also great.
Originally I had something more squared but it was feeling a little too close to Impact. So I rounded the rounds a bit and it's starting to look like it has more personality. Do you have a go-to for a condensed fat title font? Any feedback appreciated.
You need software that can compile those vectors into font formats. Fontself is a great AI plugin and is really easy to use, but there are also some stand alone softwares that have more feature, and in some cases, easier to use because they're made specifically for type design. Prices for those standalone ones can appear expensive if you've never done something like it before so I'd say go for something small first and see if you end up wanting to pursue it further from there.
I totally get that the full version of glyphs might be too expensive if you're a student but if it's your first font you might not even need the full version.
If you specifically want Glyphs, Glyphs Mini will probably get you a long way and it's significantly cheaper (49€) than the full version. They also offer 50% discount on the full version for students which would take the price down to 149€.
There's also free alternatives like FontForge. Or cheaper alternatives like Fontself which is a plugin for Illustrator for font creation (they also have a plugin for photoshop). Fontself also offers up to 40% student discounts (it's usually priced 39$ for the illustrator plugin).
I really think Fontself might be what you, and a lot of people who come on this sub, are looking for. For anyone not hellbent on selling their font, it's the quickest way to get to a working font.
It's fun to play with, for sure. And yes, it can help you learn. It's limiting, but also, when you're starting out making a typeface, limits are okay. Some cool (impractical although beautiful) things have been made with it, like http://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1299381/halftone-1 http://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/934978/fs_lost
If it's usable is debatable I guess, overlooking kerning issues, I kinda like Bongo Defense Method.
Also it doesn't get much more (retro)-futuristic than Data 70. I love that one.
I too have the issue with the narrowness, but other than that the font is beautiful.
Also re: urxvt, unless you have a bunch of urxvt scripts that you're loathe to lose, you should check out st. I switched to it (with tmux, which I'd been using in urxvt) and have never been happier with my console setup. It's been significantly faster in my experience.
fonts.google.com — scroll through, look for a woman's name. I'm not 100% positive everything there is open source, but I know that's a big thing with them. Almost everything is.
Here's a list of retail typefaces, just to familiarize yourself with of the bigger female names in type design.
Does your teacher have a reason for giving you this assignment?
Telugu is an abugida that uses marks both above and below letters to indicate vowels, so it needs a greater line height generally.
Some other Didone faces you could look into include Bodoni, Walbaum, Andrade New, and Old Standard (available on Google Fonts). This last one is a digitization of a typeface that was ubiquitous in academic publishing in early 1900s Russia. A successor design, гарнитура «Обыкновенная новая» (garnitura obyknovennaja novaja, meaning "New Standard Typeface") continued to be used for quite some time in the Soviet Union, and a digitization of it is available from ParaType.
Suranna is designed for Telugu text. If you read the description on Google Fonts, the Latin is actually borrowed from Prata, which has matching Cyrillic as well. This style of typeface is called "Didone" (after Firmin Didot, the creator of the eponymous typeface). There's no shortage of alternative takes on the style, both free and commercial.
Yes, serifs are generally better for paper and sans are better for screens. Serifs help our eyes follow the rhythm of text in a book, but they can look pretty distracting on screen. You can keep josefin sans in your headers and use something more user-friendly in blocks of texts, just check what pairings work well (example: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Josefin+Sans there's pairing info on the bottom left). The simple and safe way is to either go with a font that is very similar or very different, choosing something "in the middle" usually doesn't work. Just use something less decorative and you should be fine. Josefin isn't a "transparent" font and neutral, transparent look is what you should be looking for. Cormorant might have a contrast too high for pleasant reading, when small it looks like scattered serifs with non-visible lines.
Fonts good for reading usually have big aperture, aren't monospaced and their -total height- to -x height- ratio isn't too big or too small. Josefin is quite geometric (which means it's shapes are based strictly on geometric shapes) which doesn't help the natural "flow" our eyes follow while reading, it creates an illusion of the font being monospace-ish. We focus too much on individual signs instead of reading whole words at once.
Hope that helps, sorry if it's unclear but english isn't my first language and I'm lacking in some technical vocab here :) also I'm not an expert, really, but this is the general knowledge I got so far from my typo course.
Last thing - inDesign has a built-in option of highlighting some typo rules violations, so throwing your folio into inDesign and checking for any violations might be a good idea to make sure your text is readable. Also, people have a tendency to go for justified text but it's not always the best option for reading, you have to make sure there isn't too much white space between the words and you should keep the number of characters to about 50-70 per line.
“I’ll know it when I see it” and “handwritten” is very little to go on for a specific recommendation. Go on Google Fonts and uncheck every box except “Handwriting”, or check the “Handdrawn” category on Font Squirrel for fonts you can use without paying. (I’m assuming that that’s your budget. Obviously there are better ones that cost money.)
Don’t go on daFont like the other guy said until you have tried those sites, as daFont has many fonts for personal use only, and it also has many listed as “100% Free” but you can’t actually read their licenses so it’s a bit suspicious.
Tell us what your blog is about, or what the title is, if you want an actual specific recommendation rather than to go with your gut.
My mind raced to Crimson Text for the body copy and Playfair for the headings. Sort of a traditional/fashion combo.
One recommendation I do have (for readability): try to keep your lines of text at 60-70 characters or fewer. It'll reduce reading fatigue and make it easier for visitors to digest.
Well, has said before you can make her write some pangrams, even a few times the same one so you can see the differences that occur. But I think a plain text would also be a pretty good reference to your project. Something like 10-15lines from a random book.
After that, I would try to see what the “average” of every character would be and try to find one that fits that profile as a main model. From here you can start working on you font based on the selected characters, while still using all the material you collected as references. Also try to think about the pen she will use to write these examples, you can try different ones too.
To make the font with FontForge, most of what you need to know is on their website.
I think for a project like that, the best way would be to start on paper, by making closeups of your models and tracing your letters over it, on tracing paper.
Indeed, it seems this font was generated via TeX and ligatures of those numbers and + were created:
And I was hoping for the life story of a typographer on the why and why nots of this creation. But it is just a damn bug... neat looking, if a bit confusing though.
Wikipedia is kind of vague:
"The first incarnation of the logo, introduced in 1990, used a generic font and was used until late 1993, when it was redesigned with a white box in a black rectangle instead of a white bar between black bars. This continued until 1994, when the white bar between black bars design was mixed with the second iteration and "ADVISORY" started using a modified font.
It does, as JonnyJFunk said, point to Helvetica Ultra Compressed.
try this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
Actually, this is probably a printer font and Windows is substituting that as the screen font, normally it would use Arial so I wonder why it is not...
It's Maj. Gen. John Watts de Peyster. His Wikipedia doesn't mention the Society, but Amazon lists him as the author (of at least this one issue; this was the only real source I could find on The Eclaireur).
Books, man, books.
Just My Type is a goodie. I really like that one.
Thinking with Type is also really good.
There are a lot of really good Typography books out there; just get lookin'!
You'd be better off with "Thinking with Type". "Just My Type" is really more like a "Gosh darn, there's this type thing everyone's talking about!" and doesn't go too much into detail. Also, there's been refutation of some of the information actually contained within, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.
It depends on your definition of basics. I'd say start with the end. You’ll learn things the right way:
These two books make a strong foundation. The second goes in depth and is as close to a typographic Bible as you can get. You'll notice typography everywhere and be able to form informed opinions of it.
Good attempt. I can see that you've put a lot of work into it. However, there are some things that ought to be avoided, some basic typographical ground rules, if you will. Many of these rules coincide with basic design or composition principles, that help direct one to create a balanced piece.
A few problems I would point out are stacked font, alignment of lettering, size inconsistencies. While everything fits more or less into the shape of the word "boss," there is a bit much going on. It becomes distracting, and most might spend more time bouncing around the piece, reading one phrase or another. There is no real focus. My eye is first drawn to "New Jersey," because it is close to the center, large and bold. From there, my attention is diverted to all the other large or bold typeface. It wasn't until I started writing this post that I even realised the letters spelled out "boss," because I was so distracted by all the other elements in the image.
You might want to try working with fewer typefaces, limit your choices. Read some articles on compositions, artistic or otherwise. I suggest this site as a good primer: Thinking with Type
There isn't really any particular issue with each typeface, on the whole, I would say that there is a bit too much going on. The piece is too busy. Your idea of fitting album names and the like into a piece that will spell "boss" or "the boss" is interesting, and there are many ways you could execute this successfully. Keep working at it! And check out that link - it really is quite informative.
On further examination Outfit is almost identical to Lexend. There are some noticeable differences (Lexend has bars on its capital I, a lowered middle of its lowercase w, and a closed 4) but it's otherwise the same philosophy. I'm not saying Outfit is bad or accusing you of plagiarism; inevitably some fonts are going to look similar.
FYI, Etymologically speaking, the porn part of the word pornography comes from the Greek and French word for prostitute (since the models sell their bodies for money).
What you want are not ligatures, but Monograms. Make something awesome.
Yea, I really dislike the numerals. Totally agree about the "m".
Also, far as I can tell there is only one font, not a full typeface. Not exactly pro quality material there; you can see the lack of variety already bringing down the new OS' aesthetics and usability.
There’s a lot of fiction books that are public domain- project Gutenberg has them in relatively unformatted html. I don’t know if they have any with illustrations though. I did like the inclusion of illustrations.
If you're limited to Google fonts, I think Sail pairs well with Playfair Display bold, and it's fairly calligraphic.
Here's a website for knockoff fonts, sorted by alphabet. If you go to the section I linked and look for the font "Bank Script," that's one that I think would pair well with Playfair Display as well. It's based on Engrosser's Script, which is definitely calligraphy, and I think it looks really elegant, if a little stiff.
Although if this is for some actual business and not just for a school presentation or whatever, I'd recommend not using this knockoff copy and actually just buying it.
And I found this, which is great.
https://www.notion.so/Black-Type-Designers-Foundry-Owners-60480cf235434d5085db34b39e76205e
Maybe coz its already a font on Google Fonts: Varela Round. I'm just expanding the Greek/Cyrillic set and a few symbols for my upcoming font which need them. Good thing is it supports Hebrew by default so that's an extra lol.
Google fonts is an excellent resource for high-quality free fonts.
Check out the IBM Plex families. It’s available in Serif and Sans Serif varieties, in numerous weights. Very versatileand readable.
It probably wouldn't be too hard to write a little javascript that includes the <br>s at the end of the line automatically. But I'm with you, I wish it could be done with CSS.
I was busy at the time when it should have been submitted, but I did a simple version in Affinity Publisher beta, set in Bembo. I would have done it more thoroughly and on more copy if I had more time, and hadn't spent that time copy pasting that entire chapter. Anyway, for those who are still around: https://www.docdroid.net/EVuvGNy/rtypo.pdf
To me, it feels similar to Dalton Maag's Aktiv Grotesk, a typeface I've been using quite a bit when I'm looking for something Helvetica-y that's not actually Helvetica.
Out of the many Google webfonts, Gravitas One by Riccardo De Franceschi, a graduate of the type design program at Reading University, is in the 1850's poster style and a high quality face to boot.
Just write down all your default settings so you can get back to them if necessary. Then you can mess around until you get it just right, and without losing track of where you started from.
I've edited a couple of learned journals for more than a decade and the styles are rather different for the two of them, so I have half a dozen different "sets of settings" profiles.
Also, I'm still using InDesign CS, the older version (and it works fine for me), so my go-to reference book when I want to try something new is Adobe InDesign CS Bible by Galen Gruman (Wiley, 2004). It's one of those monster volumes that covers everything and you can probably find a used copy relatively cheap at ABE.
Can you please do a jacket for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? If you haven't read it yet, you're in for a real treat.
Not a professional type designer, other than for wordmarks, but it's a very big hobby of mine. I use Adobe Illustrator and this plugin https://www.fontself.com/. You just drag-and-drop glyphs, or really any compound path, into it and can make typable font files pretty easily.
There are several solutions with varying degrees of difficulty, from teaching yourself to use a type design program (depending if you use a PC or a mac, and your budget) to hiring a type designer. But probably an much easier way would be using a solution like Fontself (Illustrator extension) or Calligraphr (disclaimer: I haven't tested it). The results would definitely be less polished than with a professional designer, but for a font that you can install and type with on your computer, I think it would work.
If she has Adobe Creative Cloud, get FontSelf. A very simple way to create a font from vectors or images/sketches. There is a Photoshop/Illustrator template available (search on the support pages). It makes a font! You miss many features with quality typography, or good typographic tools, but you make a font.
Glyphs is a great app to start on (if you have a Mac), and they have fantastic tutorials, for example:
- Diacritics: learn how to build letters with accent marks for Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc.
- Arabic: learn how to add Arabic to your font.
And in general, Glyphs has a menu where you can browse scripts and add some or all letters from that script to your font, then all that's left is to draw the letters.
Also, it would help you to discuss and research these topics if you learn the difference between a script (aka writing system or sometimes alphabet) and a language. Cyrillic is a script that is used by languages like Russian and Ukrainian – there is no such thing as a language called Cyrillic. French is a language that uses the Latin alphabet. Thai is a script that is used by the Thai language and other languages in Thailand. Hebrew language is written in Hebrew script. Arabic script is used for the Arabic language, but also other languages like Punjabi (in Pakistan), Persian and Urdu.
Thanks! I didn't release it yet, but if i do i'll post an update in this subreddit. For starters i'd suggest downloading Glyphs Mini. There are a ton of good tips online. Check Oh No Type's instagram and Grilli Type's twitter. Also Robert Bringhurst's book The Elements of Typographic Style is like a bible for type designers, so consider buying/reading that one as well. Would love to see what you come up with!
Best bang for you buck on a mac is Glyphs Mini - https://glyphsapp.com/glyphs-mini Check out the free trial first.
Fontforge is free and fine, but the interface is mildly frustrating.
Thanks! :) I'm new to this as well I guess. I've been doing vector stuff in Adobe Illustrator for many years now but never taken the time to design a typeface before. I'm using the app Glyphs for Mac.
http://briem.net/2/2.3.1a/2.3.1.01.notes.htm This site has a crazy dated design, but the written content is still very useful to someone just starting out in designing type. Also, you can download a free trial copy of Glyphs: https://glyphsapp.com It's a very user friendly type design program.