Design tip bits

When printing was still being done using letterpresses there were two types of numerals available Tabular and Old style. Tabular The characters have the same width (occupying the same space). Tabular numerals are typically used to set material in which columns of characters must align vertically with one another. Old style numerals Numerals that do not align with one another as the tabular numerals do, but instead mainly occupy the x-height, with some numerals extending above the top of the x-height and some below the baseline. Old style was used for text and Tabular was used for price lists and forms etc. Along came DTP and we only had digital versions of fonts. Most of these typefaces only used tabular characters. This did not result in great looking design, the numbers were far too big and prominent on the page. Take a look at the following examples. You must admit that the second line looks a lot better. When InDesign was introduced, especially Open Type, classical typesetting c...

Yeah it's Friday, day for fun stuff. Type My nine year old son wanted to make his own birthday invitations. A collage of fast cars, Sponge Bob, a cool DJ and Babes (his words not mine). The theme of the 'disco party' is Bling Bling. While helping him make his e-invite, we couldn't find a 'Bling Bling' type typeface in my font file. So I looked on the web and found this site. Bling Bling Just what his e-invite needed. I have not experimented with the different settings, but what I liked most is that you can save the file as JPEG, PNG with transparency, and as a PSD file with layers! Hey for a nine year old's invite it was fast and did the job. Fun site Here's a great site for a department store in Holland. (If I have to compare it's like a Walmart or Woolworths) Give a while to start. Hema And to watch during your lunch break ; -) Master of photography

In InDesign CS3 we now have the Agate, new to many especially Europeans. For us designers who have been around a while, remember the Schaedler precision rule with inches, millimetres, picas and that odd one Agate lines? The others we could place but Agates? There were numerous discussions about the use of the Agate line measurement. We knew it was used for newspapers, at least in the USA (and still is today), but for those new to the Agate here's the story. 1 Agate is 1.814mm, 5.5pt and there are 14 Agates in an inch. According to wikipedia an Agate is the smallest point size that remains readable on newsprint. It is used for statistics and legal documents (also known as the "fineprint" when it comes to contracts.) In About.com I came across the following: "Definition: Still used as a unit of measure in advertising space in some newsletters, an agate line is one column wide by one agate in depth. An agate is 5 1/2 points or 1/14 of an inch. 14 agate lines equal ...

All designers know Helvetica and when to use it, then came the knock-off computer font Arial along with the pc- do it yourself "designer" and Arial appears on every word document and flyer. Can you see the difference? Test yourself at: http://iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/ Want to know more about Helvetica and Arial then go to: http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html And then of course you can read about the Helvetica film: http://www.helveticafilm.com/ Then try the ultimate typeface game, (but not on the bosses time) http://fontgame.ilovetypography.com/ Now get back to work ; D