Headline Heads Up — No. 21

October 16, 2013 at 11:04 am

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

 

Brand

Foundry : Lián Types
Designer(s) : Maximiliano Sproviero
Cost: $37

Brand Typeface by Maximiliano Sproviero - Soft Chancery Cursive Script Example

It’s no mis­take the sam­ple above is all about food; Brand is the per­fect pack­ag­ing script for tasty morsels. It has vari­ety with OpenType lig­a­tures and alter­nates to help it grab atten­tion, but leg­i­bil­i­ty and read­abil­i­ty remain high when glanc­ing on a store shelf or adver­tise­ment. There are also inline and shad­ed ver­sions that would work great for warm, invit­ing invitations.

 

Braxton

Foundry : Fontfabric
Designer(s) : Evgeny Tkhorzhevsky
Cost: $95

Braxton Typeface by Evgeny Tkhorzhevsky Alphabet Example - Pointed calligraphic upright script

On the other end of the script spec­trum is the point­ed, cal­li­graph­ic Braxton by Evgeny Tkhorzhevsky. Available in five weights, the delib­er­ate style of the strokes give the let­ters strength. However, the rep­e­ti­tion of the angle and ver­ti­cal stroke weight destroy read­abil­i­ty in any kind of longer sen­tence set­ting. With a few extra lig­a­tures and styl­is­tic alter­nates, Braxton would work well in pack­ag­ing or an iden­ti­ty system.

 

Levi Rebrushed

Foundry : Levi Szekeres
Designer(s) : Levi Szekeres
Cost: FREE for personal use

Levi Rebrushed by Levi Szekeres Alphabet Example - Rough, raw brush design font

Similar to Braxton, Levi Rebrushed is built on very delib­er­ate strokes. The rough, painter style isn’t for every project, but for the right grunge, punk, or edgy poster it is per­fect. You will also need to check that you have all the glyphs you need as this is far from a pro­fes­sion­al font with full lan­guage support.

 

Brush Up

Foundry : Pintassilgo Prints
Designer(s) : Ricardo Marcin, Erica Jung
Cost: $24

Brush Up Typeface by Pintassilgo Prints Alphabet Example - Hand painted brushed font with alternate characters

Sticking with brush style type­faces, next is Brush Up by the duo at Pintassilgo Prints. This hand-painted type con­tains three vari­a­tions of each let­ter, two vari­a­tions of numer­als, a cou­ple of extra punc­tu­a­tion glyphs, and even a few squig­gles. Its style floats between grunge, hip­ster, and play­ful depend­ing on how it is paired with imagery and even its color. That makes it a very ver­sa­tile tool when need­ing a hand made touch.

 

Sketchnote

Foundry : Delve Fonts
Designer(s) : Mike Rohde
Cost: $99

Sketchnote Typeface by Mike Rohde Alphabet Example - Hand drawn type

We’re stick­ing with hand made for the last three type­faces on this mon­th’s round up. First up is Sketchnote from Mike Rohde. Mike is the guy behind the whole sketch­note idea and he even wrote a book about it. When he need­ed a hand-drawn type­face to set his book, he cap­tured scans of his own hand­writ­ing and dig­i­tized them. The edges keep the slight­ly rough tex­ture of ink on paper while the strokes show the slight vari­a­tion of the human hand as it moves across a page. Great ideas and a great typeface.

 

Charmante

Foundry : Juraj Chrastina
Designer(s) : Juraj Chrastina
Cost: $59

Charmante Typeface by Juraj Chrastina Alphabet Example - Charming handwritten font

The sec­ond hand-drawn type­face on this mon­th’s list is Charmante. It’s elon­gat­ed pro­por­tions give it a ton more char­ac­ter and quirk. Shown above for K‑S the bold style adds even more inter­est­ing fea­tures by uneven­ly increas­ing only cer­tain stroke weights. All of it com­bines to make a charm­ing, casu­al font for invi­ta­tions, greet­ings, and cof­fee shop menus.

 

Lango Px

Foundry : Pixilate
Designer(s) : Kemie Guaida
Cost: $24

Lango Typeface by Kemie Guaida Alphabet Example - Fun, playful handwritten font

Last up this is month is Lango Px. This hand-drawn type­face is avail­able in four weights; it has tons of bounce and play­ful­ness in its tall, lean let­ters. Its casu­al and dare I say an excel­lent replace­ment for when a client demands Comic Sans on a project. Lango Px would also be per­fect for baby announce­ments, chil­dren’s birth­day cards, and other juve­nile pieces. Pixilate also has sev­er­al other hand­writ­ing style fonts worth check­ing out.

 

Headline Heads Up — No. 14

April 11, 2012 at 9:09 pm

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Sheepman

Foundry : Hanoded
Designer(s) : David Kerkhoff
Cost: $15

Sheepman Typeface by Hanoded - Alphabet Example - Handwritten, Handwriting Type

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Headline Heads Up — No. 12

February 13, 2012 at 10:57 pm

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Stgotic

Foundry : Latinotype
Designer(s) : Daniel Hernández
Cost: $10

Stgotic Alphabet Example - Pixel Type, Pixel Blackletter, Blackletter Typography

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Headline Heads Up — No. 9

October 13, 2011 at 8:15 pm

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Homestead

Foundry : Lost Type Co-op
Designer(s) : Luke Lisi
Cost: Name Your Own Price

Slab Serif Typeface with Inline White Space - Homestead Font

Continue read­ing

A Spare Update — No. 1

May 26, 2011 at 3:21 am

I read this great arti­cle the other day over on Smashing Magazine and it’s pushed me to work hard­er on some projects I’ve had in the pipes. Here’s a lit­tle update on what I’m making.

I’ve been pick­ing at FontLab — learn­ing the basics and start­ing on some advanced OpenType pro­gram­ming. I’m begin­ning with my very own hand­writ­ing, as I’m pret­ty famil­iar with it.

Handwriting Typeface in Progress in FontLab - Glyph Palette View

The idea is to end up with six to eight glyphs for each let­ter, three or four vari­a­tion glyphs for numer­als, and maybe two or three vari­a­tion glyphs for punc­tu­a­tion marks. Along with some cus­tom lig­a­tures and nifty OpenType pro­gram­ming, the con­cept will be a very nat­ur­al hand­writ­ten font with a lot of fluc­tu­a­tions and ran­dom­ness to best mimic real hand­writ­ing. As you can see from the screen­shot above, I’ve got a lot of work to do and holes to fill in.

The Other Thing I’m Making

Blackletter, Pixel, Type Slugs, and TypographyMy other awe­some project that I’ve put into action is some fun but­tons that I think are pret­ty cool and witty. I’ve put togeth­er a quick online shop­ping cart if you think they’re neat enough that you want to give me some of your hard earned money and get a set. *hint hint wink wink* There’s four reg­u­lar pin-back but­tons and four mag­nets to a set.

Right now, I’ve got the typog­ra­phy relat­ed set and a set with some skull designs. I think I’m going to work out a plan where I release new sets on a reg­u­lar basis and build a big­ger cat­a­log. And of course, some more styling tweaks to the shop­ping cart for more cohe­sive branding.

But as the arti­cle says…

I’m a true believ­er in per­fect is the enemy of good. I could per­fect the design until every pixel is exact­ly how I want it, until every fea­ture and fil­ter is live on the site, but for what? My own per­son­al sat­is­fac­tion? That’s just silly. Launch now, pro­vide value now, and sweat the details later.”

- Michael Aleo

I would like to add to that — “Everything is a work in progress, just like life.”