Speaking of Typography

In order to counter the "bad type" post from Monday, I thought I would share some of the resources I use when looking for good typography. I don't have the budget to drop $85 at a time on a complete font family, so I rely on independent foundries that offer free and pay-what-you-want downloads. Thankfully with the introduction of the @font-face tag and the wide-spread use of great fonts on the web, more and more typefaces are being made free for downloading and web usage. And, for your enjoyment, some fun font-related games! (If you're into that sort of thing.)

Free Fonts

Font Squirrel 
This is a site that I have bookmarked at work and reference often for beautiful and free type. Not only do they have hundreds of fonts available, but they can be sorted by style and whether or not they are compatible with @font-face. Their @font-face Kit Generator is also a great tool to compile web fonts and create the correct code that you can plug right into your site's CSS. I found the font for my sweet madness logo on this site and use it often!

League of Movable Type
Another great website for finding exquisite typography is at the League of Movable Type. All the fonts hosted there are open-source and available for use with @font-face. Their collection is more about quality than quantity, and as a result they have some really fabulous typefaces. Personally I'm partial to Chunk!

Lost Type Co-op
A recent discovery of mine and one that I already love is the Lost Type Co-op. They have a great collection of lovely and unique type inspired by iconic styles like art deco Miami Beach, the early years of the space program, national parks and steel worker's unions. Many offer @font-face compliance and all feature a "name your price" download, with the option of naming $0 for a free download.

Google Web Fonts
If you're looking for web-safe fonts, a good resource is Google Web Fonts. Google is making hundreds of fonts available for @font-face usage as well as making them open-source and available for download. The site, much like Font Squirrel, makes it easy to compile the fonts for your website and add them to your coding. Designers are also using KickStarter (the fundraising site) to raise money in order to get their work into Google's directory, if you'd like to contribute or donate.

Games & Other Resources

What the Font!
At work we're sometimes given a piece or logo made by another designer and are asked to recreate it. A lifesaver in this process is MyFonts.com's What the Font! tool. Basically you upload an image with a clear shot of the unknown typeface and through the magic of computers it can search the database to find similar fonts. It doesn't always work perfectly, but when it does it can save hours of scouring over fonts to find the exact match.

Kern Type
For all of you type nerds out there (like me!), this game challenges you to kern a word in a specific font and see if you can space it correctly.

Shape Type
From the same group that brought you Kern Type is Shape Type, the game where you alter a letterform and see how closely your work resembles a famous typeface. Do you have what it takes to be a typographer?

Kill Comic Sans
Are you a Comic Sans hater like much of the design world? Then you'll love this first-person shooter game where your target is the infamous typeface. 

Best Thing: Quirky Kid's Books

I love the concept of creating children's books out of complex "adult" ideas. Einstein once said "If you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough." If you can explain something to children you can be sure you know what you're talking about. Recently I've found these awesome books - the first, an introduction to graphic design written for kids:

Graphic Design for Kids by Pamela Pease

And the second, a wonderful board book for young web designers:

HTML for Babies by John C. Vanden-Heuvel Sr.

If I ever have children, they will read ridiculously awesome books like these!

Hold Your Horses

Sorry if things are looking a little wonky! I'm in the process of rearranging my blog a little so just bear with me until everything is working smoothly. By tomorrow afternoon everything should be in order again! I'm aiming for a look that is more website and less blog, so you'll have to let me know what you think when it's all said and done.

Rainbows? Hotdogs? Flashing GIFs?

I came across a list of the 15 Worst Web Sites of 2010 while doing some research at work. Most of them were genuinely terrible, with bad typography, annoying music and unfriendly navigation. But then there was this gem, from the Yale University School of Art:

Trust me, this screenshot doesn't do the animated GIF background justice. You can see it live here: art.yale.edu

I  still can't decide if I love it or hate it.