A Man of Many Faces Free Fonts

With a nice 3 week vacation before starting school again, I've rationed a bit free time to get around to doing some things that I've been meaning to get around to. Part of this list includes putting up some recently acquired posters, reformatting my hard drive, and finally finishing up my portfolio section for this site.

And yet there's one thing that I'm most eager to do—organize my jumbled typeface collection.

If you couldn't tell by the huge headers, I'm a bit of a type nerd. Ok, that's an understatement, but you get the point. One of the most challenging—and possibly most exciting—parts of any design project is finding the right typeface for the job. I usually start with a rough idea of what kind of face I'm looking for (slab-serif, old style, etc.) but it's almost always open from there. I've found that browsing through a list that's already organized is super-efficient. Conversely, there's nothing more frustrating than starting from “A” and browsing one-by-one, which begs the question: what's the best way to organize a typeface collection? (Sorry to anyone who thought this was going to be a “How to choose the right typeface Free Fonts” discussion; it's coming soon.)

Know Limits

While most of my Design Tutorials time is spent for on-screen endeavors, occasionally I'll take on a print project or two. I almost always find that there are such clear differences between the two, differences that make me believe that a great web designer can be a terrible print designer, and vice versa. The biggest difference for me is the limitation that each medium holds.

The ability to understand and design within the technology is what separates the superstars from the fan boys. For instance, print design offers the designer a much wider typographic range than the web does. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of typefaces readily available for use. One of the most crucial and rigorous parts of a project for me is choosing an appropriate set of typefaces for the job. Notice that I didn't say “the right set”. I'm a firm believer that a large selection of faces can be appropriate for a project; choosing from the pool is just a matter of preference.

Typobituaries

During a late night online conversation with another black, white, and orange website fan, it was decided that certain fonts should be retired. They’ve had a good run, but some things must come to an end. Whether, by overuse, obscurity, or just plain ugliness, here are some that just don’t make the cut.

Out of the kindness of my heart, I’ve honored their last requests for final showings. Let’s put these faces to rest:

CSS Typography Free Fonts

You don’t often see “CSS” and “typography” used in the same sentence—and for good reason. Traditional typography is a very subtle and beautiful form of design, with thousands of variations and choices. Unfortunately, with CSS that’s not quite the case. Don’t lose hope just yet, though. CSS can do more than you might think.

Typography isn’t an exact science, and like any aspect of design, it takes practice to select the right typefaces for the job and tweak them appropriately.

With font embedding, the widespread adoption of sIFR and a slew of image replacement and JavaScript techniques, there are numerous ways of avoiding the typographic limitations of the Web. Unfortunately, these methods aren’t trivial to use and each has its own limitations. So we’ll focus on embracing our options within the boundaries of CSS.

Typography isn’t an exact science, and like any aspect of design, it takes practice to select the right typefaces for the job and tweak them appropriately. This article can’t address how to design with type, but it can help you become more aware and explore the options available to you through CSS. With a little practice you can make your design easier to read and improve aesthetics.

Why CSS?

While there are other options, CSS is the easiest, most reliable, accessible and straightforward way to improve the readability and visual design of your sites. The only thing in your way is an awareness of the techniques at your disposal and an understanding of when to apply them. From line-height to letter-spacing, you have more control than you might think.

Fine Tuning Web Typography

Typography is a sadly neglected aspect of the web design process, an oversight traditionally blamed on the technical limitations and unpredictability of the medium. While it is true that the web Design Training may not offer designers the same typographic freedom as print, all it takes.