the type nerd

The Type Nerd has moved

pstonier — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:33:38 +0000

To find new posts from The Type Nerd, go here. Enjoy!

Lettercult Alphabattles

pstonier — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:09:43 +0000

Lettercult Alphabattles result in an amazing and inspiring set of beautiful custom drawn letterforms. Simple enough…enjoy.

DesignChat Blog Team

pstonier — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:16:56 +0000

I’ve recently joined the DesignChat blog team, where I will dishing out some other typography goodies, but also more broadly focused content. Please check out my first post: Typography Invades Hollywood.

TypArchive: Found Typography

pstonier — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:06:46 +0000

The Journal of Urban Typography

pstonier — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:24:26 +0000

This is a wonderful collection of found typography. It is an intriguing thing trying to understand the perspective or lack-thereof the creators of this work. Rather, I’ll just sit back and take it in.

Marian Bantjes: Intricate Beauty by Design

pstonier — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:02:11 +0000

The Beauty of Typography on Smashing Magazine

pstonier — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:15:20 +0000

An excellent article on the Beauty of Typography through Writing Systems & Calligraphy from around the world.

Part One

Jason Santa Maria: The Influence of Print Design on Web Design

pstonier — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:42:00 +0000

Jason Santa Maria is an amazing force within the web design world. His role in improving typography and understanding the relationship of editorial design to the website is unmatched. I can extremely appreciate what he is doing in a number of respects. Not to mention, I’m very jealous of getting to share officespace with Swiss Miss.

Links:
Fontshop Designer Spotlight: Jason Santa Maria
Typekit
Typesites Interview
Jason Santa Maria on 24 Ways
We Are Mighty

The Danger of Poor Design

pstonier — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:51:59 +0000

This is Aaron Draplin telling me a story about a sign. He’s a graphic designer and very passionate about what he does. This clip is an extra from a mini documentary I am about to finish with him. Strong language- mostly lots of F words. If you like design stuff you gotta check out his site.
www.draplin.com

This is the sad truth about poor design not only being bad for business but damaging culture in a way that ripples out. Next time you need something designed, make sure you know what you’re getting.

Typographic Personality pt 1

pstonier — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:50:03 +0000

It seems that everywhere I look, type is being personified. Whether it be the countless “Which typeface are you?” quizzes that can be found all over the internet (including Pentagram’s classy version password: character) or the far less common, but far more entertaining examples of the reverse. Such as this fun example of dogs representing typefaces.

Now why is this? I don’t think anyone has a complete answer for this. I think it has part in the relationship in which is it humans are the creators and users of not only the glyphs that have evolved over the years, but now there is a style that can be applied to them. It is from this style that the personality comes out of and all typefaces have a style. Even before there were choices in how a letter would look, there was still a style to it, which often has a cultural context.

In it’s time, uncial lettering was as normal and plain as Times New Roman today. It is at that point, where the use of type is without choice behind it, that type has it’s least amount of personality. Nowadays, uncial lettering is almost always representative of a celtic tradition, because of it’s cultural roots.

Now that we have so many choices and access to fonts from all over the world, we’ve become a bit more aware of the style and character between the choice of a typeface. Early letterers were mainly focused on legibility, readability and printability. While these are still principle foci, there is also a strong consideration of the style behind a typeface.

This lettering borrowed from proportions found in the human body in order to find perfect form.

However, I digress. It is with this abundance of choice, that we become much more aware of the personality of a typeface and thus there are more opportunities to make a right or wrong choice. It is described as the “congeniality” of a typographic choice.

“congenial typography is the result of the successful use of a typeface, where atmosphere value and the actual content of the words set in that type share meaning. Harmony of form and content is exemplified by a love story printed in a delicate and warm typeface. If the atmosphere value of the type used would be one of rigidity and anger, the effect of that same story on the reader would be gravely disturbed, whether the reader would be consciously aware of this or not.”

link

However, this is not just limited to the typeface itself, but how it is set. There is as much personality in a typeface itself as there is in the spacing of a typeface.

To be continued