There’s many Tumblr blogs out there devoted to film, but this one really stood out: Intertitles focuses on screen caps of movie titles. When you start staring through a bunch of posts in a row the importance of typography and negative space during a movie’s title sequence becomes very clear.
From Font Bureau:
The digital version of Helvetica that everyone knows and uses today is quite different from the typeface’s pre-digital design from 1957. Originally released as Neue Haas Grotesk, many of the features that made it a Modernist favorite have been lost in translation over the years from one typesetting technology to the next.
Type designer Christian Schwartz has newly restored the original Neue Haas Grotesk in digital form – bringing back features like optical size variations, properly corrected obliques, alternate glyphs, refined spacing, and more.
Really interesting work here. Be sure to check out the features page to see the subtle (yet significant) differences between Neue and the default Helvetica.
I really enjoyed this extended design post by Mark Boulton. What’s awesome is the specificity here: detailed recommendations for characters per line to maximize readability, how to avoid hanging punctuation and much more.
Thoroughly enjoyable, useful interview over at The Verge with the head of design studio Information Architects, probably best known currently in the tech world for their work on iA Writer. I especially liked Reichenstein’s take on good typography:
The only thing that makes me think that Microsoft might have a chance on mobile devices is that they seem to invest a lot in typography, while Apple doesn’t seem to. For example, Microsoft’s latest future video uses Gotham as a system font. And while I don’t think that Gotham would be a good system font, it has the warmth and friendliness that Neue Helvetica on iOS lacks. I read that as “we care about typography”. With good typography you can score on a level that is subconscious to most users. Hardly anyone can discern good from bad typography, but everybody can feel it.
A wonderful look at the title sequence from Se7en. I still remember my experience in the theater with the film rather vividly; that staccato-edited macabre opening was amazing, dare I say influential later on when I started designing at work. Just look at the detail noted here:
The typography itself – which would likely break several guild legibility rules in modern times – was hand-etched into black-surface scratchboard and manipulated during the film transfer process to further smear and jitter it. This transfer was then cut up and reassembled during post production to add a final layer of temporal distress.
Oliver Reichenstein:
The size of your body text doesn’t depend on your personal preference. It depends on reading distance. Since in general computers are further away than books, the metric size of a desktop typeface needs to be bigger than the sizes used for printed matter…
Graphic designers without Web design experience are surprised how huge good body text on the web is in comparison to printed matter. Mind you, it’s only big if you compare it side to side, not if you compare it in perspective.
I’m far from being a typographic genius but I’ve argued for years that most websites have their body text far too small. Mr. Reichenstein just provided the ammo I needed, along with a great article on web font styling.
I can’t put my finger on why, but lately I’ve been skipping a lot of Smashing Magazine articles. That changed with Dan Reynold’s breakdown of body fonts. Very true to Smashing form, Reynolds’ coverage is exhaustive. A few times it becomes too exhaustive (I have doubts on the effectiveness of font ‘apertures’), but this is awesome stuff. I knew a lot of the basics (e.g. go for moderate stroke contrast, higher x-heights), but there’s a lot of info here I haven’t seen anywhere else.
Another A List Apart, another strong article on CSS. Author Alan Stearns dives into “faux” font styles and why they should be avoided.
As compiled by the FontShop editorial board. Each font is ranked with a description and series of images that illustrate the evolution of the font from its inception to modern times.
I’m not the biggest graphic t-shirt and hoodie fan but these are really cool. The heavy use of typography and abstract graphic art just clicks. (via Tools & Toys)