hey type geeks

[mopinko]

can you help a budding graphic designer, and suggest a good book about type. a reference, or a story or history.
i want to really familiarize myself with the different fonts, and where they came from and why. or at least get to where i can identify more of them.

tia

eta- programs to make your own fonts, too.

[hunter]

1. I bookmarked this a while ago...

http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com

A book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style

I'm sensitive to fonts, but not in a good way. There are fonts I've banished from my computer simply because I can't stand to look at them. Looking at DU in Verdana makes me nuts, I don't know why.

[mopinko]

2. i hate helvetica and all it's spawn

the worst part about web design is the short list of fonts, most of which i hate.

did you see the movie helvetica? super boring unless you care about such stuff, but fun it you do.

thanks for the links

[blogslut]

3. I love that film

I understand why people tire of clean, simple fonts but ultimately, if a majority of your visitors find your typeface unreadable, then you've lost them.

[velvet]

4. hey mopinko

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography

You might find some of the articles here interesting - http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/typography

Font design software :-

Fontsruct is an online font editor - http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/

Fontforge is free and open source - http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

FontLab makes TypeTool, FontLab Studio and Fontographer - http://www.fontlab.com/

Hi-Logic makes Fontcreator - http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator.html


I tried FontCreator briefly last year, made a capital A and B and discovered I just don't have the patience for font design.

[mopinko]

8. i think i might try the fontographer demo version

just see how it goes. if nothing else these tools are good for converting font formats, maybe cleaning the bugs out of some of the freebies you see. i have had pretty major computer problems resulting from buggy fonts.
thanks.

[csziggy]

5. I don't kow, but these guys would

They are old school desktop publishers, some web designers, and one is a professional typesetter at a big publishing house:
http://desktoppublishingforum.com/

[mopinko]

7. i could waste a lot of time there. i mean, where else would

you find a thread- russell brown on pixel bender
when i go awol on my mod duties, it will be on your head.

[csziggy]

9. I haven't hung out there for a while, but the web geeks there

Helped me get my website up. Not that I have done anything with it since setting it up, but what I have is good solid code.

They are good people.

[Call Me Wesley]

6. Check this out:

http://inspirationlab.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/so-you-need-a-typeface/