10 years ago, if you asked the average person to name 10 fonts, it might have been challenging. Not today. Typeface has always been significant but until recently, it was only the job of graphic designers to really understand it.
But as we’ve now been giving more tools to create multimedia and graphical content, we need to have a better understanding of font. I recall discussions with primary teachers years ago, insisting on using Comic Sans in digital content because the “a” reflected the way students were to print it. Is that still a factor? (I actually have a font installed on my computer called , “I hate Comic Sans”) What other discussions should teachers have with their students about font and typeface other than not to use dingbats for their essays? I certainly don’t know a lot about it. I know that somewhere I read serif fonts are easiest to read. I know about Guy Kawasaki’s font rule .
But fonts are now more than just about text, they are art and they are used in a graphical context in much our digital work. I know I certainly pay more attention. I did not address adequately in my design presentation for K12, mostly because I don’t have enough understanding. I ‘ll have to work that. It’s become so much a part of how we view digital content that this video, courtesy Bill Mckinnon actually is understood. We get what he’s talking about.
Image:Font 006 by Stewf
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Oddly enough I just had a conversation about this last night with an old friend. We both ticked off our favorite fonts that work well on the web and how often we have to ermm… “remind” others that their choice of fonts are somewhat peculiar.
[...] bookmarks tagged how-to Font is now part of our culture saved by 1 others EMK623 bookmarked on Mon Dec 24,2007 | [...]
I think the link to my article is broken. Please try this: http://urlthat.com/02ded26
Merry Christmas!
Guy
Hi Dean,
Just yesterday I posted a message on my blog about the possibility to use other than the usual fonts on a website, using WEFT from Microsoft.
The article is in Dutch, but you can see that it works at:
http://www.karssenberg.nl/weblog/2007/12/andere-lettertypes-gebruiken.html
PS: You pasted the link to Guy twice, so it does’nt work properly…
Thanks Guy….link is fixed, Glad to see you’re paying attention.
[...] Font is now part of our culture [...]
The font is a detail. BUT, attention to detail is a mark of quality. The challenge is to make time for quality when we’re trying to do so much in the brave new digital world. Way too often, I find that the demands of quantity supersede the desire for quality.
Happy Christmas Dean. (I’m write now because our family is getting together and celebrating on Boxing Day!)