leaves,
enlarged them to about 300 points, converted them to outlines in Illustrator,
applied a light color tint and put them in the background of a brochure for a
winery. It's so easy and makes a big, but subtle impact. See my list at the left
for sources of free dingbat fonts. SEPTEMBER 2007
Greetings!
This is my first attempt at publishing an e-newsletter. Rather than using an e-newsletter service, we decided to give it a go ourselves. Dennis, my programmer-husband, wrote the code and created the database that sends the emails when I paste in the contents (in HTML format) and push the button. But more about this later...
As a graphic & web designer, I come across information from time to time that I think should be shared — little things that can make life easier in the world of computers, technology and the Internet. In my upcoming monthly newsletters I will be sharing my gleanings with you, in the hope that you will find this information interesting and useful.
Fonts
Many web designers specify fonts other than Times Roman and Arial in their web designs, but if you don't have them installed on your computer you're stuck seeing Arial or Times. (In fact, if you're reading this in Arial, you may not have Trebuchet MS on your computer.) OR, if you’re reading this in Courier, you may have your email program set to display your messages in “plain text”, not “HTML,” in which case you won’t be seeing different fonts here at all. For this reason, web designers typically stick to fonts that they know will be on everyone's computer. If you see an unusual or exotic font on a web page, it's probably a graphic.
In addition to the fonts that Microsoft and Apple supply with their operating systems and software, there are literally thousands of fonts available for little or no money that you can download and use to enhance your communications and creative projects. (It never ceases to amaze me how many variations there can be on the 26 letters of the alphabet!) Using interesting and expressive fonts is great for printed materials, but for a web page or an email, it's not a good idea.
Font foundries are companies that create/sell fonts. Some foundries create their own fonts, or employ type designers to design for them. Other foundries represent freelance type designers. Some of the foundries with the largest collections of fonts, albeit, not the least expensive, are:
Adobe
Elsner+Flake
Emigre
Font Bureau
FontFont
House Industries
ITC
A few of my favorite sources for fonts:
www.myfonts.com
www.philsfonts.com
www.fonthead.com
www.fontdiner.com
www.typadelic.com (some are free!)
And, here are some links to FREE fonts:
www.fontica.com
www.fontgarden.com
www.fontsnthings.com
www.acidfonts.com
www.dingbatdepot.com