Blog Profile / Ralf Herrmann's Typography Weblog
| URL : | http://opentype.info/blog/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Graphic Design / Typography | |
| Posts on Regator: | 116 | |
| Posts / Week: | 0.5 | |
| Archived Since: | February 14, 2009 | |
Blog Post Archive
Canapé—a cosy typeface
Canapé by Sebastian Nagel is the latest release at fonts.info. It is based on the idea of letters with a subtly curved and slightly modulated line. Through this, the typefaces has a warm and friendly, almost haptical appearance which brings some kind of cosiness to your communication with type. Canapé Serif with its 4 fonts [...]
Let’s Meet Typomapp 2.0 — The Typography Knowledge Map
A lot of typographic knowledge is available in printed books and online in Wikipedia, web forums and the like. But you can usually just access it using a certain hierarchy based on topic, history or maybe just the alphabetic order of typographic terms. But what if you are interested in typographic information about a certain [...]
The Capital Sharp S in Use
A while ago I announced on Twitter, that it is now 5 years since the Capital Sharp S was added to the Unicode. I was asked, if it has actually been used somewhere in real world situations. A valid question! A new character shouldn’t just be made to look good in type specimen brochures. So [...]
Skyfall—Urban Calligraphy by Simon Silaidis
Simon Silaidis applied his life’s love of calligraphy in the rural, urban and suburban surroundings of Asia and Europe. You will spot his work in abandoned places, in the streets and in his studio using ink and bamboo pens. His style is a mix of Western, Asian and Arabian calligraphy and his vision of a [...]
From signs to minds—Can cartographic signs be superior to regular direction signs?
In a scientific study, Michaela Skiles from Middlebury, Vermont has tested, if simplified maps on signs could not only get people to their destination, but also help them to construct a better mental map, which would improve the understanding of the surrounding and help with orientation and navigation in the future. In this guest article, [...]
“The Geometry of Type”, 100 typefaces explained by typographer Stephen Coles
If you enter the field of typography today, you are very likely overwhelmed by the diversity of the available typeface. You can choose from over 20.000 type families at MyFonts alone. How should one ever get to understand the differences in style and quality and learn how to chose the right typefaces for a certain [...]
Introducing the pictogram font Wayfinding Sans Symbols
Ever since I publicly announced my signage typeface Wayfinding Sans Pro, people kept asking me about pictograms for this type family. So finally, here they are. A full-fledged symbol font family in 4 styles, over 400 symbols and a little bit of clever “OpenType magic” to access and combine the pictograms as easy as possible. [...]
Let’s Meet Typomapp 2.0 — The Typographic Knowledge Map
A lot of typographic knowledge is available in printed books and online in Wikipedia, web forums and the like. But you can usually just access it using a certain hierarchy based on topic, history or maybe just the alphabetic order of typographic terms. But what if you are interested in typographic information about a certain [...]
Sketches by Jan Tschichold
The German typographic society Forum Typografie arranged a visit to the type & book art archive of the National Library in Leizpig, where most of the work-related sketches and materials of Jan Tschichold are currently stored. With some other type enthusiast I had the chance to browse through this amazing collection. Here are some pictures [...]
A “modern” Print Shop
Scans from a brochure of an old German print shop in Mainz. Enjoy! Doppelmagazin-Linotype-Satzmaschinen für Spezialsatz: Abteilung für Handsatz: Abteilung für Handsatz: Maschinensaal mit verschiedenen Schnellpressen: Maschinensaal mit...Show More Summary
Typographic Myth Busting: What’s a Ligature, Anyway?
If your work deals with typography in any way, you are very likely familiar with the term ligature. But the definition of this term is often unclear. There seems to be one problem in particular: We usually use the term when we want to talk about a certain kind of ligature, to which cases like [...]
Font Piracy at Universities
This documentary by Danielle Hall explores why font piracy among graphic design students is so common and what could possible be done against it. Through interviews with type designers, a copyright lawyer, university administration, type professors, and graphic design students, this documentary sheds light on all angles of this issue. Tweet
Keyboard with Capital Sharp S now in mass production
One of the weaker arguments against a Capital Sharp S (?) has always been, that such a new character cannot become widely accepted, because there is no easy input method for it on a regular German keyboard. But this point has now started to become moot. The keyboard maker Cherry has starter mass production of a [...]
Making Sense of Maps
Map designer Aris Venetikidis is fascinated by the maps we draw in our minds as we move around a city – less like street maps, more like schematics or wiring diagrams, abstract images of relationships between places. How can we learn from these mental maps to make better real ones? As a test case, he [...]
Quiz: Famous people from the history of type and print
You recognize every typeface by just taking a glimpse at a single serif or counter? Very well! But how good are you in recognizing influential people from the history of type and printing. Let’s find out … All sketches were drawn by Evilio Gómez from Barcelona, Spain and released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0. Tweet
The Work of Emil Rudolf Weiß
Emil Rudolf Weiß (1875–1942) was a German type designer, graphic designer and painter. The scope of his work is nicely displayed in a book from 1931 called “Der Schrift und Buchkünstler Emil Rudolph Weiß” from the series “Monographien künstlerischer Schrift”. I’d like to share this with you and photographed most of the pages from this [...]
fonts.info joins Fontdeck
Back in 2008 and 2009, when webfonts in standard font formats became technically possible, most font foundries were still in denial about this technology. If there would be no real protection for fonts on public servers, they just did not want to take part and offer their fonts. But a few people with background in [...]
Erik Spiekermann at Creative Morning: Type on Screen
At the 13th Creative Morning in Berlin Erik Spiekermann gives a 20 minute introduction to Type On Screen. Tweet
The Google Maps effect in Adobe Illustrator
The simple and effective way how to automatically merge and outline streets in maps drawn in Adobe Illustrator. Drawing maps is a typical job of graphic designers and pretty much every designers knows how to do it. But not every map looks equally convincing. I always liked this special effect of online mapping services like [...]
Hardly any Support for the Character Capital Sharp S (?) on Mobile Devices
The support for the German Capital Sharp S character (?) on desktop operating systems is already quite good, considering the fact that the Unicode 1E9E was assigned just four years ago and that the need for this character is a pretty local and still controversial subject. On Windows all major system fonts like Arial, Times [...]