Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with typography

Typefaces and Visual Details for Teaching Materials, Mark II

Mngo — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:16:21 -0800

Need font and other design suggestions for subtly representing Europe 1850-1900 in a multi-period lit course. I asked and received good help a couple of years ago, when I first taught this course, but this time around I've dropped the French neo-classical unit and instead am teaching a unit on drama in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, with an emphasis on Ibsen, Zola and the general realist-premodernist trend.
Anyway, what's the perfect font (preferably that will look decent in digital projection and in print, but with projection the more important) to represent this period?
One of the subthemes of the course is the relation of drama as a technology to the technology of printing and publishing. So I use Day Roman ["In digitizing this typeface, attention was mainly given to duplicate the technical imperfections of 16th century printing"] for my early modern England unit, where new markets in both print and performance are in play, and a charming (I thiink) free retro typewriter font called Liecester for my US cold war unit, stressing the still-important modernity of typing and the strong relation between stage and print in this period.
Anyway, neoclassical France and my use of Garamond are out this time, so what's perfect for the age of realists, naturalists, and symbolists?
(Bonus points for improvements on my earlier choices and especially for suggestions for decorative visual elements that can be used logo-like on materials for these periods).

Chicago is no help to me here

luriete — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:29:10 -0800

I'm typesetting a book with some music notation in it. There are several references to 3/4 and 4/4 time, which I had set in nifty opentype fractions; however, the editor and I are unsure of whether or not this refers to "four-four" or "four-fourths" time - and this is one of the few things that Chicago doesn't address. So, designers and readers: what do you think? 4/4, using lining numerals, or a 4/4 fraction?

What's comparable to Myriad Pro Condensed?

deern the headlice — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:16:52 -0800

What's a nice font that's comparable to Myriad Pro Condensed? For the site I'm designing, the client's logo (an illustration) is fairly close to Myriad Pro and overall the site is pretty Apple-y. Using Myriad in this context is just going to look excessively Apple-y.

I would love a recommendation for another quality sans-serif font that looks good bold and condensed. I've tried Frutiger and that's pretty decent, just wondering if there's anything else you'd suggest - thanks!

AOL logo font?

nostrich — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:09:09 -0800

What font is the AOL logo? Images here, for reference.

Sorry, no matches for the tag graphic design books across MetaFilter‽

Mr. Anthropomorphism — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:19:17 -0800

What are the essential books on the topic of the objective qualities of effective graphic design? I am particularly interested in web design, but anything that pertains to the underlying principles of design and the interplay of aesthetics and content would, I think, benefit me.

I'm not so much after a gallery of "wow, look how easy this is for the masters" but more of a manual that bears re-reading and referencing.

I don't have a mint to spend, but if I could maybe have at least one each regarding layout, color, and typography, I think I would benefit hugely.

Help me learn to typeset equations like it was my job. (Why? Because it is.)

nebulawindphone — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:56:56 -0800

I am looking for a math typesetting style guide. By this I don't mean the kind of stylesheet for journal submissions that says "Be sure to use the blah-blah-blah LaTeX package and the XYZ equation environment, and our army of editorial assistants will tie up the loose ends and knock off the rough edges." (Why not? Because my advisor is involved in starting a new journal, and suddenly my labmates and I are that army of editorial assistants.) I am less interested in the technical details of mathematical typesetting. We've got our fonts chosen already, we're committed to using LaTeX and AMSMath which I speak pretty fluently, and we're distributing online so anything having to do with print is Not An Issue. In particular, I am not looking for another LaTeX user's manual — although if the advice I need happens to be buried in one, I'm okay with that. I'm also not particularly interested in simple questions of usage ("bigger parentheses or square brackets?" "~ or ¬ for negation?"), especially since a lot of those boil down to taste and convenience anyway.

I'm more interested in what you might call the visual semantics of it. (F'rinstance: How do you set a long equation so as to reveal its structure quickly and easily to the reader? How can spacing, line breaks, alignment and so on be used to produce that sort of clarity, and what other tricks are there that I'm not thinking of? What about a sequence of equations? A derivation or proof? How do you set a nonstandard symbol — an operator, function, etc. defined by the author;we get this a lot in my field — so that it's clear what its role in the equation is? This isn't a complete list of questions, but it's questions like that that I want to learn how to answer.) Aesthetic details — good spacing, good line breaks and page breaks, all-around symmetry and tidiness — are also important. The goal is to make these thorny and technical articles as easy and joyful to read as I possibly can.

Bonus points for a guide with good advice on the odd situations that come up in formal semantics and mathematical logic. (For instance, I've been unable to find any advice for laying out expressions in lambda calculus, or ones containing multiple quantifiers, and both of those are frequent sources of difficulty here.) But if that's asking too much, then I'm looking for general best practices that I can apply to the edge cases when they come up.

Which typeface has a particularly well designed semi-colon?

defenestration — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:49:01 -0800

Which typeface has a particularly well designed semi-colon? I'm working on a design that is built off of a semi-colon.

One stipulation:

The upper, dot part of the semi-colon must be perfectly circular—or at least close. Beyond that, I'm just looking for opinions on particularly well designed semi-colons.

Thanks, hive mind!

Moto Logo

Shike — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:27:07 -0800

I need logo and font help. The name of my vintage motorcycle restoration business is MotoKrow. My last name means "crow" in Dutch, and begins with a K. I like vintage motorcycle logos, but don't want to copy. I'm very fond of the old Moto Guzzi logo. Anyone know what that font is? A simple logo like the Matchless one is nice. I'm no designer, and I thought this place full of smart people (like you!) would be helpful. Apologies in advance if I've violated some sort of protocol here.

I'm trying to win an internet pissing contest with my dad.

Jon_Evil — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:32:06 -0800

What is the font on this "Durham Fair" logo?

What fonts does Adobe install on my Mac, and how can I separate them out?

yesno — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:22:03 -0800

What fonts does Adobe install on my Mac, and how can I separate them out? Adobe's fonts are wonderful but I've never appreciated the way that Adobe just installs files willy-nilly all over my Mac. Even Microsoft installs its fonts in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft rather than /Library/Fonts, the way Adobe does.

Basically, I would like /Library/Fonts to just be the fonts that are standard on the Mac. I'd like to put all other fonts into ~/Library/Fonts/subdirectory. I don't see that any third party has business putting anything in /Library unless it's absolutely necessary.

So, can I get a list of what fonts are what? (Adobe doesn't bother separating out its fonts in Font Book either.) Then, if I move all the Adobe fonts out of /Library/Fonts and into ~/Library/Fonts/Adobe, will anything break?

Font facsimile help, O font nerds?

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:30:03 -0800

Help me identify this font or find a reasonable facsimile, please. The title "VISIBLE EVIDENCE" here. I need to get a print-quality version of it with the XVI, and the webmasters are not able to help.

Thanks!

Help me categorize "The Limits of Control" poster

nameless.k — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:27:29 -0800

Typography/DesignFilter: Help me categorize "The Limits of Control" poster I stumbled across the Limits of Control trailer, and really loved the poster featured on the page. They've released a fuller poster with a photo of the main actor, etc; however, I'm now enamored with the look of this text and would like to know what descriptors I should be using to describe it (I tried to google it, but didn't even know what terms to use).

Or better yet, where have you seen examples of text similar to this?

Thanks a lot!

I am a typeface... songs about fonts

Katemonkey — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:16:55 -0800

Looking for songs about fonts... I've decided that what I really need in my life is a playlist involving songs about fonts. So far, I have two - "GBI" by Kylie Minogue & Towa Tei and "Times New Roman" by The Applicants.

It would be extremely helpful if they were easy to purchase, i.e. iTunes, Amazon MP3 store, etc.

It would be hilarious if there was a song about Comic Sans.

Non-breaking 2-em dash

Busoni — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:26:37 -0800

How can I use non-breaking 2-em dashes using HTML or CSS? For example, I'd like to write "R——" and not have that broken up by a line.

It seems I could use the "nobr" tag, although it appears it's not encouraged.

I've been led to believe the 2-em dash is precisely that: two em-dashes. Unless there's a single character I could use?

I should mention I'm just beginning to learn CSS, so if the answer is obvious, my most humble apologies.

Vintage Stores with Permanently Inlaid Sidewalk Logos?

jfrancis — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:36:18 -0800

Vintage Stores with Permanently Inlaid Sidewalk Logos? Q: What changed that used to allow stores to do that? Ownership of the building? You tend not to see it anymore.

I was coming out of a store on the main strip in Santa Barbara last month when I noticed there was a vintage-looking store logo inlaid into the sidewalk. And it was to a now forgotten store - not the current one.

Here is an example I just found via Google

I think that would make an interesting photo collection: photos of long-closed stores, confident in their long term future, remembered now only by the inlaid logo in their entranceway sidewalk.

Anyone have such a photo?

Next time I see a case like that I'll take a snapshot, myself. I think at the very least it would make an interesting flickr group.

Making vectors out of old cuts

Foam Pants — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:42:46 -0800

I have been loaned a set of metal cuts from an old press. I need to create vector images from these items. Should I scan the cut or an impression from the cut and, after picking a method, what would be the best process to get a sharp image?

FontFilter: What font would work well with various family members of Briem Akademi?

deinemutti — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:25:57 -0800

FontFilter: What font would work well with various family members of Briem Akademi? I'm a graphic design student and I'm beginning to design a personal identity set: business card, letterhead, envelope. I have my basic design finished, which uses Briem Akademi for the name (family members are semibold, regular and condensed).

While these look fine for the name, I don't think it's going to work for contact info as far as readability goes. I don't know whether I should use a sans-serif font or a serif font. Any ideas/suggestions?

I can has embedded fonts?

aheckler — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:17:43 -0800

Where can I find a list of fonts that can be legally embedded using @font-face? Yes, it's only supported by a few browsers right now, but I'm looking to try it out. I know of a handful that can be legally used in this manner, but I'm hoping there's a catch-all list out there somewhere.

Failing that, suggest your favorite embeddable font. Bonus points for stylish yet high-quality serifs!

What's the best online resource for wedding invitation designs?

yesno — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:25:40 -0800

What's the best online resource for wedding invitation designs? Neither my fiancée nor I are graphic designers, but we would like to have some nice wedding invitations made up without spending too much money. We're looking for a place that is reasonably priced but doesn't make some clip-art looking junk. One of the cheaper places I found used straight quotes instead of curly quotes on their ugly designs, but then a nice place I found was charging in the range of $10 per invite. There must be a happy medium.

Wish I still had my class notes...

bellbellbell — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:01:34 -0800

Looking for a specific article on text placement on a map. I am trying to find a specific article (it may have been a book chapter) about text placement on maps. It was required reading in a cartography class c. 2004-2005, but referred to as THE authority on the subject. It could easily have been fifty years old. It had helpful little illustrations.

Any ideas?

Can anyone find this poster?

Alex McP — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:21:32 -0800

I'm prepared to design it myself, but I'm interested in a spectacularly type-set/laid out kitchen poster that has common conversions and equivalents on it (Cup/Gallon, that sort of thing). Anyone seen something heart stopping?

The Strange Surprizing Spelling of Robinson Crusoe

woodblock100 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:36:49 -0800

In early English typography, what were the rules for deciding when to use the letter 's', and when to use that thing that looks like an extended 'f'? In the question about Robinson Crusoe asked a few minutes ago, there is a link to an old printed page. In the text on that page, there are many examples of the letter 's'. Many are modern in appearance, many are old-fashioned. The only 'rule' I can seem to find, is that if the letter in question is at the beginning or end of a word, it gets the modern treatment. But what was the reason for the differentiation? Were these actually two different 'sounds' back then? That seems unlikely ...

Soviet Cowboy Fonts?

ITheCosmos — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:51:55 -0800

I'm looking for the website of an Eastern-European, I think, designer & typographer who designed some cool-looking Western (cowboy-style) fonts with a former-Soviet-satellite flair. The site had scans of some of his sketchbooks. Anyone?

Custom fonts online... again?

electric_counterpoint — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:29:25 -0800

What're the best practices these days for including custom fonts in web design? Last time I looked into it, around a year and a half ago, sIFR was big, but I don't like the hit to usability (no right clicking, no highlighting regular and replaced text together, etc.). I know newer browsers support CSS embedding, but I don't believe that they have a significant market share yet. I'm guessing that, since I still don't see a range of nonstandard fonts on the web, there's still no perfect solution. Any other imperfect solutions I should know about, though?

This is all on a whim, understand — I'm only dealing with a personal website and a few nice, free fonts are my candidates. I'm only thinking of doing headers and page titles. If the state of the art hasn't advanced much, that's fine; I just thought I'd check in.

(To preempt any sidetrack, the free fonts I mentioned above are licensed for web display — I just checked.)

Name the lovely Obama Serif!

potch — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:14:32 -0800

What typeface is used in the Obama promotional materials? No, not Gotham, I'm looking for the serif used for his name. Sample linked inside. Sample: Obama/Biden

Both WhatTheFont and Identifont failed miserably btw.

Thanks in advance!