Category Archives: Typography

InDesign CC 2014 offers excellent fixed layout ePUBs

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This is probably the big news for InDesign CC 2014. Although there have been many improvements to Reflowable ePUBs, they are incremental. The ePUB FXL has the possibility of being almost revolutionary. So, how big is this change? It is very hard to show the differences because the layouts are so different. But, let’s look at two examples where I did the best I could to get the same content side by side. In this small-sized screen … Continue reading →

Font Design Webinar, tomorrow June 10 Noon Eastern

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I’ll be sharing tips and techniques on letterspacing. This important task is relatively easy in FontLab and I’ll show you how. Here’s FontLab’s invite: Advanced Font Creation Tips, Made Accessible David Bergsland’s first webinar on troubleshooting font creation got a standing ovation from the attendees! David’s no-nonsense designer-friendly approach is accessible to all. Now he is following it up with “Advanced Font Creation” in FontLab Studio Tuesday June 10 at 9:00 am Pacific / noon Eastern / 18:00 CEST. Register … Continue reading →

It’s very good seed! A graphic & font family package

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This is another package I’ve put up on Creative Market. An excellent image of good seed sprouting in good soil… A four-font serif family named Artimas. A good start to a card design This stuff is just useful and at a very good price. The retail cost is well over $100. This package is: Only $29

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Another font for book cover design: Astaire

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Until just after the Fourth, this outstanding font family is on sale for on $9 a font. Astaire has the elegance you need At 64% off, through Myfonts, this is an excellent deal to start your summer by building your font library. This is the annual sale of one of my favorite font families. It is a beautifully stylized set of fonts which are remarkably readable. They work really well for large copy in cover design. Each … Continue reading →

Practical Font Design video course is up on Udemy

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I’ve finally gotten my practical font design video course up online and available for you. This is just practical stuff without any fancy theory or stuffy rules. This is just basic procedures to make a font with minimal effort. I let you watch as I design several fonts. I provide sample fonts. My goal is to help you get some fonts produced so that you can make your own designs with confidence. You’ll find many of my opinions, but … Continue reading →

Reminder: PostScript fonts do not work in ePUBs

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 Click to enlarge This capture shows you some of the different characters available in an OpenType font. This font, Contenu Book, has oldstyle figures [lowercase], lining figures [caps], & small cap figures. It also has true small caps, discretionary ligatures, ornaments, ordinals, and more. These things are always supposed to be used in print, even though only InDesign and Quark support such a thing for page layout AFAIK. I assume most of you know this, but I … Continue reading →

Why does list quality matter in your ePUB?

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Yea, I know, here goes David off on another of his “professional quality” rants again…. But this one’s important! Lists are #3 in reading importance The studies I’ve seen [and please prove me wrong if you know better] show that, after picture captions and headlines, lists are third in reader importance. Many readers look for lists as they start skimming when they get bored. They assume that a list will give them a synopsis and let them … Continue reading →

I’m teaching a Webinar on troubleshooting the font design process

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Please click here to contact us with any questions Troubleshooting Your Fonts Webinar   Dear David,      Happy New Year and welcome back to the Fontlab webinar series! To start off the new year  (Tuesday, 21 January at 11:00CST) David Bergsland will talk to us about troubleshooting the font design process. For many, if not most, new font designers dealing with the sheer quantity of characters and glyphs is daunting. What is needed is a procedure to get your … Continue reading →

The new flat UIs or the Emperor has new clothes

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We all remember the story. A king is scammed by cunning tailors to walk around naked. The new iOS7 and Mavericks [OSX.9] are clear examples of this type of thinking. The lemming designers, like the Weather Channel, are beginning to run around proclaiming the wonders of the new kingly style. As you can see below, shutterstock claims the lemmings are going wild for the new style. Hey! The emperor is naked!!! Fashion which forgets about the reader … Continue reading →

Author beware! You are responsible to make good choices

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Dave Bricker posted a long article today about the dangers of publishing without knowing the expenses and requirements of book production. You need to read the article if you are ignorant of the scams perpetrated on authors. Most publishers you run across with a quick Google search as you start your hunt for help will be vanity houses seeking to scam the author. There are countless people lusting after your production money This is where you need … Continue reading →