Albertina was a typeface ahead of its time. It was in the early 1960s when designer Chris Brand, an accomplished calligrapher, aspired to draw a typeface based on the principles of calligraphy. Unfortunately, typesetting machines of that era put many restrictions on designers. Characters had to be drawn within a very coarse grid, which also defined their spacing.

Modern Baskerville fonts are based on the type of John Baskerville, the distinguished eighteenth-century English printer and type founder. His original type was based somewhat on Caslon, but is a more precise design with more contrast in character stroke thickness.

OpenType Pro fonts offer an extended character set supporting most Central European and many Eastern European languages, as well as English. Many also contain small caps, old style figures, extended ligature sets, swash and alternate characters.

Vincent Connare designed Comic Sans in 1995, for applications intended for children. Fifteen years later, the font is wildly popular with users of all ages – except for graphic designers, most of whom love to hate it.

When you select type that’s going to be read, legibility is key. But when you use type as decoration, creativity wins the day. Designing non-typographic elements out of type used to be painstaking work. Thanks to today’s robust software, you can create original ornaments by having fun with fonts.

In Part 2 of a two-part series, Ilene Strizver takes on the question: what makes a typeface a good choice for display settings? Once you’ve made your choice, a few simple adjustments will get your display copy the attention it deserves.

Although some of the identifying characteristics of a good typeface are universal, others vary depending on whether the face is intended for text or display applications. This month we’ll discuss what makes a text typeface worth using..

Hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes are frequently used punctuation marks that are just as frequently misunderstood. All three marks are essentially horizontal lines, though their lengths vary. However, these three different marks have very different purposes, and using a hyphen to do an m-dash’s job is just as much of a punctuation error as using a question mark in place of a comma.

Proper email etiquette means a lot more than saying please and thank you. Follow these tips on everything from fonts to attachments, and you’ll be sure your message arrives intact and readable.

Vincent Connare designed Comic Sans in 1995, for applications intended for children. Fifteen years later, the font is wildly popular with users of all ages – except for graphic designers, most of whom love to hate it.