Sites of the Week: Fonts, Faces
and More About Our Literary Cat
Literary Cat came in this week and unloaded several URLs to sites about type fonts. What the heck, cat!?
Actually, Kitty and I are thrilled! It’s been one of those weeks from Hades, and we really thought the first week in November would pass without a post on our blog. But here was our favorite aloof cat, prancing in and dropping the goods. I suspect he* thinks we’re gonna pick just one, but we’re gonna give ‘em all to you.
The truth is, we rarely think about the type font in a book we’re reading unless it’s difficult to read. If you’re reading along, engrossed in your latest book, and you’re not paying attention to the typeface, then the type designer has done his/her job well, as has the publisher in deciding to use that particular font.
Most people didn’t think about type fonts at all until the computer age, when everybody became an expert with those drop-down font menus on their desktop machines.
Whether you know a little or a lot about type fonts, you’re in for some fun discovery with the links below:
The Top 100 Best Fonts of All Time Most of the fonts on this list are 20th century creations, developed in response to the mass printing capabilities offered by the letterpress and offset printing processes. But some fonts are truly timeless. The oldest creation on the list is Bembo, designed by Francesco Griffo in 1496, about 56 years after Gutenberg developed his movable-type printing press.
Serif or Sans-Serif? Don’t know what we’re talking about? Actually, you do. Marketing executive David Canfield explains the difference, and talks about the advantage of one over the other in print and online environments.
Font or Typeface? We sometimes use these terms interchangeably, but there is a difference. The FontFeed provides the details. (Our favorite explanation of the difference: the Font is the mp3 file. The Typeface is the song. Beautiful!)
The Anatomy of Web Fonts Want to get deeper into what the online environment hath wrought for typography? Go here.
Top Ten Typefaces Used by Book Design Winners More scoop from The FontFeed. Take a look at these fonts the next time you’re designing a cover for your latest report!
Typography Geeks and Font Snobs Finally, our favorite former Oklahoma librarian, Cokie Anderson, provides this wonderful little post on Booktryst. I think I would have loved it even if I hadn’t taken a typography class in college!
*Asterisk! More about our literary cat… Kitty and I have a disagreement about the gender of our furry friend. I think he’s a he, and she thinks she’s a she. We don’t actually know. We never get close enough to him/her to tell. I mean, it was hard enough to round him/her up for the photo above. And since we do not discriminate on the basis of gender, it doesn’t really matter. The pay for our weekly site is the same: one can of tuna.
