font - Programming Blog

Posts Tagged ‘font’

Typography Eye Candy

19 Jan 2010

The other day, while I was sorting out and organizing my bookmarks, I ran across this site called Letterhead Fonts. I had completely forgotten about this site and the moment I saw it, I knew I had to feature them here on Design Informer. If you like typography, then this showcase is definitely for you.

Background

I contacted Chuck, the founder of Letterhead Font and asked him if I could feature the designs from his website and he graciously accepted.

Here is what Chuck had to say about Letterhead Fonts.

Letterhead Fonts began in October 1999 with 4 fonts.

As a sign painter who had come from a hand-lettering background, I couldn’t find the fonts I wanted – so I made them myself. Others also appreciated these styles and the website grew.

I’ve always preferred the older letters from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, so that is what I focused on most. Other artists joined me later. Today, Letterhead Fonts has 18 regular contributors (including myself) and over 300 fonts (I have removed several over the years). All of these artists are professionals in the sign and graphics industries, which gives them a unique perspective
and insight as to the balance of the letters.

The purpose of Letterhead Fonts remains the same as it was 10 years ago– to make unique, high quality fonts that serve a purpose. If it isn’t something that we would use ourselves or if it already exists, we won’t do it.

Letterhead Fonts only offers Postscript OpenType fonts. We stopped offering the horrible format of TrueType in 2007. Postscript is the only format that ensures the letters look exactly the way the original artist drew them. TrueType on the other hand, adds new points to the letters– thereby changing the shape of the letters. It’s like painting a masterpiece and then having someone Xerox it 50 times. Very frustrating.

Because we make all of our own fonts and sell them directly from our site, we can provide good customer service to our users. If anyone has a problem, we can fix the issue right away for them (or help them install the fonts or provide other technical assistance). We have our own server and a very advanced account system that keeps track of the customer’s purchases. When we release a new version of a particular font, it is automatically updated in everyone’s account so they can download it again.

Though this method of being both the creators and exclusive distributors is more work, I prefer this way of doing business over selling through a third party. Besides, who wants to give away 30-50% of their sales to someone else?

Showcase of Letterhead Font Designs

Here are just some of the designs that were created from Letterhead Fonts.

Please do not copy or post these images anywhere. Special permission was granted by Letterhead Fonts to Design Informer to use these designs.

To see more of the Letterhead Font designs, please make sure you visit their gallery.

Well, thanks for viewing the Letterhead Font showcase. Do you like this vintage style typography? By the way, which one of the designs did you really like and why? Please let me know in the comments below.

One last thing, please bump and stumble this article so the rest of the design community can see these amazing designs. Thank you so much.

Go to Source

(1) Comment
Tags: Brian, Chuck, font, Fonts, good customer service, hand lettering, letterhead, letterhead fonts, quality fonts, sign painter, site, typography

How To Learn Principles of Design From Pre-Installed Templates

In: tutorial

19 Jan 2010

pages In a digital age, desktop publishing has made it possible for nearly anyone to produce well-designed online and paper documents, such as newsletters, business cards, websites, posters, letterheads, PowerPoint and Keynote presentations, etc. While professional graphic designers are the best resource for producing high quality designs, nearly all of us working in professional fields could benefit from having knowledge of basic design principles.

The best resource, in my view, for learning graphic design is Robin Williams’ classic, The Non-Designer’s Design Book. She outlines the basic principles of design: proximity, alignment, repetition, and contrast. What you learn from her book can be seen in well designed templates that come installed in programs like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, and Apple’s Pages and Keynote. While in a pinch, you could pull up these design templates and use them without much customizing of the layout, but it would be better to recognize the design principles used in these templates to help make your projects unique. The basics principles of graphic design are not as difficult to understand as you might think.

So launch Microsoft Word, Pages, or any program using professional design templates and let’s use the them to recognize basic design principles.

Font Styles

When you examine professional design templates one of the first things you might notice is that there are usually no more than three different fonts used in a document or design piece. Many newsletters, for example, make use of the classic and readable Helvetica or Helvetica Neue font. A designer will use the same one or two fonts, but will will change the size and style of the font for different parts the document. Regular Helvetica Neue font style may be used for the body text, while a slightly larger size of the same font, in bold style, will be used for sub-titles and pull-out quotes. Highlight the texts in templates and make note of the names of fonts that are used. Typically they include Helvetica, Courier, or Baskerville, with a variation in size and style of the font (e.g. bold, all caps, italics.)

Proximity

The next element you will want to notice in design templates is how items and information are grouped together. As Williams points out, “When several items are in close proximity to each other, they become one visual unit rather than several separate units.” For example, in this business card, information is separated into groups, instead of scattered all over the card. This makes the information easier to read.

Repetition

Well-designed documents also use a repetition of elements, as we can see in this newsletter where three images are cropped and aligned together for effective repetition. Again, as Williams points out, “You can repeat colors, shapes, textures, spatial relationships, line thickness, fonts, sizes, graphic concepts, etc.“ The effective use of repetition is pleasing to eye and it can communicate important content in a design.

design13

Contrast

Notice also how the designers use contrast to make layouts graphically appealing. The large PortagoITC TT font used for the nameplate of the newsletter below is in near stark contrast with the Helvetica Neue used for the body font. We also see how the designer used a strong red graphic fill to make the nameplate stand out. The idea behind contrast as Williams explains, “is to avoid elements on the page that are merely similar. If the elements (type, color, size, line thickness, shape, space, etc.) are not the same, then make them very different.“

Alignment

Probably the easiest basic principle of design to recognize in templates is alignment. Body text of course is usually always aligned to the left. But notice how other elements (images, boxes, titles, and information) are aligned with one another. “Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily,” writes Williams. In the postcard below, the alignment of elements is very evident. The image of the house is aligned with the green box. The street name and price of the house are both centered, and the contact information is grouped together under the photo of the real estate agent. The arrangement of these elements helps the reader move his/her eyes from one element to the next.

There’s nothing wrong with using templates to produce documents, but when you understand the basic elements of design, you can customize templates and make them unique for your individual purposes.

So how aware are you of basic design principles in the work you do? What online and book resources have you learned from?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!