Category Archives: Typography

A good article on kerning in InDesign magazine for July

Skilled Workman Posted on by

Kerning is that area of typography rarely talked about. Ilene Strizver has a good article on kerning, both what it is and how to accomplish it, in the July issue of InDesign magazine. One of the sure signs of a pro book designer is in the kerning of the heads and subheads. That along with solid widow, orphan, and runt control are major areas of page layout normally ignored completely by users of Words. Of course, the sad … Continue reading →

Quick and easy letterspacing in FontLab

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I decided to post this. It’s part of my new book, Practical Font Design Streamlined. I found as I was recording the videos for My Udemy course, Practical Font Design, that I had gradually developed a new, much faster, and more efficient workflow for designing fonts. It takes what was in the original three editions of Practical Font Design to a whole new level. This post is going to offer some pieces which will be referenced in the new book. … Continue reading →

Beautiful typography has sadly diminished

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There has been a disturbing trend lately of incredibly gorgeous fonts that make bad typography. How can that be? Beautiful typography has become very rare. To understand that, we need to look at what good typography is. I often tell my students and apprentices this general principle. Beautiful typography is not noticed! You notice and absorb the content. If you notice the typography or font, you are missing the purpose of your design. Here’s an example of a new font … Continue reading →

Newly digitized Doves Type font designer finds old lead type in the Thames

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Here’s a fun article from CreativePro about the process. Many people do not realize that a lot of the “free type” and a good deal of the professionally designed type is made from or started with digitized characters from printed works using old letterpress fonts outside of the copyright period (normally pre-1940, at this point, in most cases). Doves Press type is one of those   The link to the typespec.co.uk site gives more info on the  discovery. … Continue reading →

Variable type for ebooks?

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There have been rumors around for several years now that multiple master fonts might not be gone completely, or that a new solution might be in the works. Nick Sherman wrote a long, but exciting article about the new possibilities on A List Apart. Superpolator (on the left) shows some exciting possibilities. My personal hope is for OpenType features in ePUBs. Variable type has some big guns behind it Recently, Adam Twardoch made a proposal along these same … Continue reading →

My Udemy course “Practical Font Design” huge discount!

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One of my Christmas presents to you this year is my video course for Practical Font Design using FontLab 5 on Udemy. It’s normally a $99 course. But: Until New Year’s Eve: Only $19.00 USD It would make an excellent gift also. It includes complete ebook copy of the PFD book which sells for $9.99. Use this link for the special price

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New release: Designing ePUBs With InDesign by David Bergsland

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Ebooks have been a mess until now. Actually, they still are in many ways. However, InDesign CC 2014 has truly solved most of the problems. It always did export the best PDFs. Now it exports very good ePUB FXL (fixed layout), reflowable ePUBs, and because Kindle will upload the reflowables converting easily, the Kindle problem is solved also. Wonderful that all our problems are solved, right? Well, you know better than that. Each format requires a redesign … Continue reading →

Writing and working in InDesign makes using it easy

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I was talking to a friend a couple days ago. He mentioned the primary trouble he has in using InDesign to format his books: when he gets into InDesign he can’t remember how to use it. Suddenly, it dawned on me that this is a primary reason why writing in InDesign is so effective. Not only is writing fully formatted in InDesign the best method of communicating clearly with your readers [outside of excellent content], the simple act … Continue reading →

New Release: Writing In InDesign CC 2014 Producing Books, more than an update

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CC 2014 virtually redid ePUB export—adding fixed layout & radically improving reflowable ePUBs Indesign has always been the best software for publishing: print & ebook. I have already posted quite a bit about the new software. Most of the improvements seemed to be focused on we self-publishers. But my book is also redone— in places quite radically. A review by Mary Campagna Findley for the CS6 version “David Bergland has challenged me to think beyond the writing, editing, and cover design … Continue reading →