Wednesday 14 October 2009

Typography: lesson 1


Gill Sans and Snell Roundhand.
I read somewhere recently that the best two ways to learn about the form of type are tracing and calligraphy.

I devised a folding document which can be used to compare the uppercase "S" from the book versions of Futura, Hoefler Text, Bodoni, and a 4th font which I must admit I can't remember the name of (I thought it was Optima, but it's not. I'll try to find out, but in the meantime I'll refer to it as "The Mystery Font"). The "S" from each font appears twice, orientated so it can be overlaid with the other three fonts, like so...

...Bodoni and Hoefler Text...

...Hoefler Text and "The Mystery Font"...

...Bodoni and "The Mystery Font"

There are plenty of typography resources on the internet (it appears geeks love type). Typeworkshop is a good one that has a fantastic tutorial on the basic elements of type design.

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