More about fonts: Helvetica 1, Arial 0

If you’re interested in fonts, and especially if you don’t like Arial but do like having your prejudices confirmed, you might enjoy a couple of articles written by typeface designer Mark Simonson. He describes Arial as: actually rather homely. Not that homeliness is necessarily a bad thing for a typeface. With typefaces, character and history …

Floundering in fonts

How do graphic designers do it? I’m working on a new logo, for personal rather than business use. Or rather, Zoë Shuttleworth of Rude Goose is working on it, and I’m no doubt driving her round the bend with my contradictory input. This probably sounds like a vanity project but there’s a motivational reason behind …

Smart quote-marks for smart writing

Keyboard shortcuts are a great timesaver when you’re spending hours typing away on your computer. I’ve just learned a couple of new ones, for inserting smart (curly) quotes in text where autoformat functions, such as Word’s, don’t work, and for doing the opposite: inserting straight quotes when you’re working in AutoFormat mode. I discovered these tips …

Dot-dot-dot (2): when to type an ellipsis

My post on Tuesday (26 October) was about how to type an ellipsis; this one goes into a wee bit more detail about when you should do so. I’ve lifted the following straight from Wikipedia, mainly to save time but also because I love the following phrase: “the ellipsis can also inspire a feeling of …

Dot-dot-dot (1): how to type an ellipsis

Here’s a quick tip  that comes in handy for computer-typing in general and Twitter in particular (it saves you two characters). When you’re typing an ellipsis (three dots indicating an omission), instead of typing all three dots, type it as a single character by using the following keyboard shortcuts: Mac OS ellipsis: OPTION + semicolon …

Internet gems

ne of the things I love about the Internet is the way it lets people share their enthusiasm for and knowledge of their own niche subjects. Subjects that you may never have given a second (or even a first) thought to but when you discover them are a delight. Here are some examples: The Daily …

Cut printing costs: use Century Gothic

A test conducted by Printer.com compared ink consumption for different fonts. Century Gothic was found to use 30% less ink than Arial, used as a benchmark, and less even than Ecofont, designed with low consumption in mind. I use Century Gothic a lot as I like fonts with open “a” counters. For my old logo, my designer chose …

A blizzard of books (1)

I don’t know whether to be delighted or dismayed. Peachpit Press has published new titles by Robin Williams. Dismayed, because I’m in the middle of a clear-out and decluttering exercise that involves tens if not hundreds of books that I’ve accumulated over many years. And I’ve just splashed out on cut-price books at Borders, so I …

Holey moly!

Dutch creative communications company Spranq has developed an ecofont that they say saves money and helps the environment by using less ink than other fonts. You can download the font free here. A professional version is also available for large organisations (Spranq will essentially punch holes in your corporate typeface to produce an environmentally-friendlier version). For people …