Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are quite unique. What follows is a list that every letterer eventually commits to his/her own mental reference file.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Feb 3, 2009 - 36 comments

Decodeunicode.org has a useful and full-featured search for the names and glyphs for those Unicode characters that display as a plain box full of despair. It is presented by the Department of Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz. Roll the dice ⚅⚄ and try it out. [more inside]
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Jan 23, 2009 - 25 comments

Israeli designer Oded Ezer produces stunning works of experimental typography. He has been lauded for creating [PDF link]"...Hebrew characters that melt," but it is his more unconventional work that is truly breathtaking - made up of letters with vivacity and personality. He calls his gorgeously abstracted work "typo art," existing wholly neither in the space of art or typography, with hope that it might transcend language altogether. See his flickr stream for more sketches, works, and arresting typescapes.
posted by youarenothere on Jan 9, 2008 - 21 comments

A Website about Corporate Identity. A large archive of corporation logos with design credits, typeface identification (or, at least the typographic roots of the ID's.) and Pantone color information. Not at all complete, but it's a very nice start. Hopefully it will continue to expand. via: Grain Edit (design blog)
posted by JBennett on Nov 7, 2007 - 11 comments

So You Want to Create a Font (Part 1, Part 2). For something with a less presumptive title, there’s this, this, this, this, this, or even this, Eric Gill’s An Essay on Typography.
posted by tepidmonkey on Oct 29, 2007 - 15 comments

It’s easy to talk about Adrian Frutiger in the past tense, since his most influential fonts – Univers, Egyptienne, and the eponymous Frutiger – are all at least thirty years old. But he is still alive, and in the summer of 2006, as he was presented with the Society for Typographic Aficionados’ annual Typography Award, type designer Mark Simonson gave a presentation on how Frutiger [pdf, 18 MB] affected, and continues to affect, him and all others who benefit from good typography.
posted by tepidmonkey on Oct 3, 2007 - 14 comments

Fontfilter -- ever wondered what font a logo uses? Wonder no more. (site's in German but the chart is simple--there's also a reversed one, by font instead of by company)
posted by amberglow on May 29, 2007 - 14 comments

Gems of Penmanship, Penman's Leisure Hour, Ninety-five Lessons in Ornamental Penmanship, The Champion Method of Practical Business Writing and other Rare Books on Calligraphy and Penmanship from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Lots of neat tidbits. [via mlarson.org]
posted by mediareport on Feb 24, 2007 - 12 comments

Misprinted Type.
posted by hama7 on Oct 23, 2006 - 22 comments

An open letter to John Warnock. "Please consider releasing eight to twelve core fonts into the public domain. The amount of revenue lost from a small core set of fonts surely can’t have a significant impact on Adobe’s bottom line."
posted by DrJohnEvans on Aug 30, 2006 - 53 comments

Hans Reichel (previously) is a man of many talents. His own site (flash/sound) is fun (often funny) and chock full of agreeably wacky sounds, but can take some time to navigate. Reichel hasn't made it easy for you if you happen to be in a hurry. You may well get stuck somewhere and just give up. That'd be a shame, though, cause you'd miss getting acquainted with the guitars he makes and plays. Or how he designs fonts. The mixing board shenanigans are not to be missed (once you get past those curious little fellows in the brown hats), plus you can sorta kinda play his daxophone yourself. And of course conduct your own little ensemble of meercats when one of them finally comes out of hiding and says "Hallo! Play with me".
posted by flapjax at midnite on Aug 3, 2006 - 6 comments

The Pixel Plant offers 150 Pixel Fonts for between Free and 45 cents each.
posted by dobbs on Oct 22, 2005 - 7 comments

The Scourge of Arial. It has spread like a virus through the typographic landscape and illustrates the pervasiveness of Microsoft's influence in the world. Arial, however, has a rather dubious history and not much character. In fact, Arial is little more than a shameless impostor...
posted by Robot Johnny on Aug 9, 2005 - 97 comments

FontLeech: The Free Font Blog. Searching for free fonts (that don't suck) so you don't have to. Just launched the other day; might be worth watching for us broke designers.
posted by DrJohnEvans on Feb 22, 2005 - 36 comments