Following up the last web fonts post, here’s a new favorite font sent over by Denis. The good folks over at Fontfabric have released this beauty for free, and I’ve just used it in our most recent project. Take a second to appreciate the very pretty design of Fontfabric’s website while you’re at it. Download ARCHIVE here: http://fontfabric.com.
The web is still awfully young in the grand scheme of things. Since we use digital technology so much now, sometimes it’s easy to forget that we are really still at the beginning of this era, and it will continue to evolve at a breakneck pace as we learn and develop new ways of computing. For the main text of an html site, it is still a good idea to use one of the ten or twelve standard web fonts, but we’re now able (HOORAY!) to use a huge selection of special and prettier fonts for headings/menus/etc on the web.
We love font squirrel { www.fontsquirrel.com } for their wonderful collection of commercial and web fonts. Below is a sampling of a few current favorites. You can download them for free at the link above. Enjoy!
If you know about Anthem or have been reading these posts, you may have noticed that I have a love and necessary use for many old artistic tools and techniques. For me the computer is one of the tools in my kit of many. Unlike most designers, I do not use software exclusively. I believe there is a tool for each project, or likely a combination of tools, and design does not neccesarily always equal digital.
I have a giant collection of Letraset (or Geotype and several other companies of the same nature)… quite a few pages are originals - about 40 years old, some from my time living in the UK, and most bought in various shops around Vancouver and Santa Fe. There are over 5000 fonts on my Mac for design work, yet here I am sitting with a few hundred sheets of rub-on lettering which happen to be mostly Helvetica and Futura.
Tonight I am once again happy and thankful that it is 2011, and I have the ability to bring in all things new + old to my practice here at Anthem. As part of this section on type collections, I would like to pay homage to a personal favorite: the rub on words.
Long live handmade lettering.
Letterpress is one of my favorite printing techniques. With modern letterpress we have so many options available to us via the use of photo polymer plates. Now we can design using both old and new processes. It’s very exciting.
If you want learn this beautiful craft, W2 in Vancouver offers drop in classes in the converted Woodwards building. Visit their website here: www.creativetechnology.org
Emily Carr Institute also offers intensive letterpress courses. Find out more here: www.ecuad.ca
Photo from Josh Conrad. To see more of his adventures in life + creativity click here.
I love homemade signs. I love it when the farmers spell their fruits + vegetables wrong along the highway, and I love all sorts of handmade, homemade signs living out there in the world. I have decided to share the ones I come across from now on… and here’s one from my archives taken on the Oregon Coast.
If anyone has a great/crazy sign to show, email them here and I’ll post them. Your own photography only please.