Typography
Remember how you stopped using italics because they looked so bad on web pages, but then when the operating systems started anti-aliasing you started using them again? Well, think again, my friend. They’re worse than ever on the small screen:
This Rugby Logotype Comparison is a great “illustration” of the way Flickr facilitates an ongoing visual conversation.
UsableType: Web Typography Guide is a great collection of articles on all things typographical for the web, from measurements units in CSS to sIFR. (via)
Typo Magazine, published bi-monthly in English and Czech discusses Typography “from different points of view and with connection to other fields such as architecture, photography, social science, and aesthetics.” A recent issue (#13) includes very in-depth articles on word recognition and on-screen legibility. And back issues are available for PDF download (password required for printing, though I’m sure you can figure a way around that if you really want).
TypeNavigator is a visual search engine for fonts. It’s great for when you know the form you want, but don’t happen to know a specific face. And, interestingly, works much much better in many real-world cases than concept-based font search engines. (via)
FontEditor lets you design your own bitmap font and then download it as a TrueType font. (via kottke, who appreciates your support)
If you’ve never read Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller, you’re in for a treat, and I just noticed that they have a web site with a whole buncha essays. Poke around and you’ll find gems like this: “Typography is an interface to the alphabet…Readers usually ignore the typographic interface, gliding comfortably along literacy’s habitual groove. Sometimes, however, the interface should be allowed to fail.”
Jason may not like it, but sIFR replaces tagged HTML type with Flash so you can embed a display font without upsetting your precious document structure. I think of this less as an absurd hack (which it assuredly is) than as a big “get your s**t together” to the browser and type makers.
If I were in London, I would go visit The Type Museum. It’s still in development, but they have cool stuff like this big fat italian M:
Autotrace is an open source app that converts bitmaps to vectors (just like streamline, RIP). And there’s even an online version (note: your art will be saved on their server, so it ain’t private). There’s also Silhouette, and probably others (or you can just use Flash’s Trace bitmap command).