Learn About Fonts & Typography
Explore the world of typography with Fonts.com as your guide. Our Learn About Fonts & Typography section is your resource for improving your typographic acumen and keeping up with what’s new on Fonts.com and the latest trends in visual design.
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Display Margins & Centering
May 14, 2013
A simple typographic rule states: if it doesn’t look right, it isn’t. Anyone setting type can increase its readability by making manual adjustments to alignment. Making things “look right” typographically, often requires overriding mathematical accuracy with optical correctness.
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Customer Spotlight: Ireland.com
May 13, 2013
Ireland.com is the online presence of Tourism Ireland, an organization marketing the Emerald Isle as a premiere travel destination. The layout of the Ireland.com site is quite kinetic, with modular content blocks of varying size overlaid upon large, vibrant photographs. The site utilizes the Ro...
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Tricky Type Terms
April 26, 2012
Typographic terminology is sometimes very specific, and the nuances can be confusing. Here are three pairs of terms that are frequently misunderstood. They are related, but refer to different things. Understanding the distinctions will enable you to communicate more clearly, typographically speaking. This ...
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Recent articles
Browse the most recent contributions to Fontology, the Fonts.com Blog and fy(t)i.
Display Margins & Centering
A simple typographic rule states: if it doesn’t look right, it isn’t. Anyone setting type can increase its readability by making manual adjustments to alignment. Making things “look right” typographically, often requires overriding mathematical accuracy with optical correctness.
Spacing Display Type
When you purchase or work with a professional quality font, your assumption might be that the spacing won’t require manual adjusting. However, display settings occasionally need a bit of finessing to look their best, as built-in spacing and kerning cannot be flawless over a wide range of large sizes. Small adjustments can make a big difference. Here are some important factors to consider when setting type at larger sizes.
Reverse Display Type
Reversing type – that is, placing light or white type against a darker background – is a useful way to add emphasis as well as to help develop a strong typographic hierarchy. A reverse headline can provide an inviting, eye-catching point of entry, signaling the viewer to “look here” before moving on to the other elements.
Customer Spotlight: Ireland.com
Ireland.com is the online presence of Tourism Ireland, an organization marketing the Emerald Isle as a premiere travel destination. The layout of the Ireland.com site is quite kinetic, with modular content blocks of varying size overlaid upon large, vibrant photographs. The site utilizes the Rockwell typeface family nearly exclusively; it’s employed not only for headlines, [...]
Use SkyFonts to Sync Google Fonts to Your Desktop
While more and more Web design is being done in the browser, much of the initial prototyping is still handled within desktop design apps. This requires Web designers who are working with Web fonts to also acquire desktop versions of their fonts. It also put an onus on Web font providers such as Google and [...]
New Fonts.com Web Fonts Master Subscription Offers Unlimited Desktop Fonts, Typographic Command for Digital and Print Design
At Monotype, we believe that type is the foundation of good design and that this principle holds true whether you’re designing for the Web, print or any other medium. With the aim of providing the tools necessary to deliver great typography for all media, today we proudly unveil a major enhancement to our Fonts.com Web [...]
eText Fonts Provide Quality e-Reading Experiences
I’m pleased to announce a collection of typefaces specifically crafted for high-quality e-reading experiences, particularly for content displayed at smaller text sizes. Intended for Web and digital content publishers and device manufacturers, the suite offers some of the most widely used typefaces traditionally used for print that have been designed and tuned for ease of [...]
Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with Irish and Celtic Typography
Many of the traits that are traditionally associated with Celtic and Irish Typography are actually vestiges of the ancient Insular script style, originated in Ireland over 1400 years ago. Insular scripts, which are identified by their unique letterforms, all-capital case setting and often-ornamented or flourished letters, heavily influenced the Gaelic and Irish handwriting and type [...]
Initial Letters
An initial letter is a large first letter of a paragraph, set in a decorative or graphic way. It offers a visual cue that can signify the beginning of an entire work, such as a book or article, as well as chapters or significant paragraphs within a work. Initial letters liven up a page by adding color, emphasis, and typographic interest.
Type Designer Q&A: Rod McDonald
For over four decades, Rod McDonald has held an impressive and multifaceted presence in the field of visual communication – graphic designer, type designer, writer and teacher, McDonald’s work has evolved from sign painting to photo lettering and into the arena of digital type design. One of McDonald’s most recent designs debuted in September of [...]