CHAPTER 9 The Next Steps for Web Typography
- The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
- The Stroke by Gerrit Noordzij
- U&lc: Influencing Design and Typography
Meet Type Designers
In May 2013 Jessica Hische wrote an incredibly easy to follow essay “Up-
ping Your Type Game”^17 about selecting typefaces, stressing the impor-
tance of selecting a few type designers and sticking to their typefaces. I
couldn’t agree more. Not only do different typefaces from the same design-
er usually work well together, but talking to your favorite type designer
can bring another perspective into your own process. Type designers have
tons of testing and feedback under their belts and we both share the com-
mon pain of the publish once, work everywhere imperative. For example,
we use @media queries to adjust our designs to different screens; they use
hinting to translate bezier curves into a pixel grid. We are frustrated with
fragmentation and an ever-increasing number of breakpoints and tweak-
points that are difficult to maintain; they are frustrated with manual
hinting at every letter size. We have different browsers; they have different
rasterizers. In short, we have a lot in common and they can be a perfect
friend if you need a shoulder to cry on.
Type designers can advise you as to what could be the best letter size
for your design, how to compensate for the lack of fine spacing control
in CSS, what typeface works best in a given situation. They will have a
different view on things, because they’ve seen their typefaces used in
many more scenarios than we have. They know who their influences are
before they start creating a typeface. And ultimately, they know the history,
because they have been part of it.
Small foundries are very easy to reach, but so too are the bigger found-
ries with their representatives readily available on social networks and at
the conference next door.17 http://jessicahische.is/talkingtype