Creative Exchange
Winepressofwords.com
Wine Press of Words is a site that consists of the “Essential Blend of Writing, Design, Marketing and Book Publishing”. If you like writing, designing book covers or any other aspect of the book publishing industry, this is the perfect site for you.
Dailystickers.com
A fun, little site that features one single sticker for sale daily. Founded by four partners including a former IADT- Tampa instructor, Kerstin Upmeyer, this site not only provides daily entertainment, it also offers anyone and everyone the chance to submit their own sticker designs and get a small percentage of the proceeds if their sticker is chosen!
Davidairey.com
Davidairey.com is a blog created by brand identity designer, David Airey, who has created visual identities for clients across the globe and companies of all sizes. Also check out his other blog, www.identitydesigned.com, which features a showcase and form for those involved in the process of brand design.
Typographyserved.com
Typography Served is one of a collection of sites that showcase category-specific content within the Behance Network. This particular site features top work in categories such as typeface design, lettering, illustrated typography, or any piece with a strong typographic treatment.
Aqua-velvet.com
Aqua-Velvet.com is a highly edited mix of creative nourishment and resources including art, design, illustration and typography among other curiosities. Created by nationally award-winning designer Amy Henderson, this site is a must-visit for all graphic designers.
Designshack.co.uk
Design Shack showcases inspiring web design, alongside resources and tutorials for you to succeed in the same way. We only offer the cream of great design, filtering through lots of the redesigns that occur every day across the Internet, and cataloguing the greatest projects out there – perfect for getting that spark of creativity going again.
Underworldmagazines.com
Underworld Magazines is a design blog displaying some of the best design news, resources, and interviews from around the web. On Underworld Magazines you will find a lot of Graphic Design, Web Design, Resources, Inspiration, and much more.
Independentfilmmakerproject.com
After debuting with a program in the 1979 New York Film Festival, the nonprofit IFP has evolved into the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, and also the premier advocate for them. Since its start, IFP has supported the production of 7,000 films and provided resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers’ voices that otherwise might not have been heard. IFP believes that independent films broaden the palette of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism. This is their blog.
Graphiccompetitions.com
Interested in expanding your portfolio and possibly winning some fantastic prizes as well as getting your name out in the industry? The site compiles graphic competitions from all over and puts them in one place for you to check out!
Filmrally.com
FilmRally is a film-scheduling engine coupled with a social networking tool. Membership with FilmRally is FREE for everyone to join and create a profile. Every Member is searchable by potential Producers & Directors. The Productions side of FilmRally is a powerful marketing, organizational, and film-scheduling tool. You can manage every aspect of your production from organizing your Locations, Props, and Wardrobe to managing Cast & Crew.
PDF-mags.com
PDF-mags.com is your database for the freshest inspirational PDF magazines from all over the world. Here, you will find links and information about over 250 free PDF magazines with a main focus on art, design, illustration and everyday culture.
Animationarena.com
Animation Arena is a leading animation resource for 3D, 2D, Flash and Concept artist & graphics enthusiasts. Check out this site and find top rated info about Art Programs, Schools, Jobs, Tutorials and so much more.
Awn.com
The Animation World Network is the largest animation-related publishing group on the Internet, providing readers from over 151 countries with a wide range of interesting, relevant and helpful information pertaining to all aspects of animation. Covering areas as diverse as animator profiles, independent film distribution, commercial studio activities, licensing, CGI and other animation technologies, as well as in-depth coverage of current events in all fields of animation, AWN gives its readers an easy to navigate, visually and intellectually creative mechanism to electronically access a wealth of information previously unavailable anywhere in the world.
Internationalfreelancersacademy.com
If you’re not sure what to do to grow your business profitably, struggling to figure out how to land better clients and projects, searching for proven and sustainable ways to boost your income faster, looking to make tangible, transformative improvements in your freelance business, or just trying to determine if freelancing is right for you; you’ll find all the training you’ll need on this site.
Typesites.com
Typesites is a weekly showcase of websites with interesting typographic design. What once started as an idea for yet another generic website gallery evolved into something that gives much more depth than a normal showcase. Whereas galleries simply post generic designs by the bucket-load, this site strives to showcase only design that can inspire and teach—and then explain it. Staring at a great design can only give so much inspiration. But examining it, being critical, and getting the view of a professional designer can add so much more.
Adclassix.com
AdClassix.com has spent years gathering a unique collection of original, authentic print advertisements spanning the last century. They showcase only the original vintage advertisement produced for any given product. Their sources include Time, Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, MacLean’s, National Geographic, Punch, l’Illustration, Country Life, Ladies Home Journal and many, many more.
Insight
Concept:
“The Words That Make the Man”, created by Graphic Design student Felix Cayon is
a typographic representation of a portrait of IADT-Online instructor, Dick Patterson.
This piece involves hours of intricate manipulation of descriptive words provided by the subject and uses perspective techniques to create a convincing sense of reality.
Materials:
Original portrait by Glenn Perotte. All of the type was placed, resized and outlined using Adobe Illustrator. View this full size at www.artistikmagazine.com/type_portrait.pdf.
The Invasion of the Font People
Back in the earliest days of recorded history, when vinyl was the main medium for music, there were really only two kinds of Font People in the Design business: those who knew something about fonts, typefaces, and measurements called “picas,” and those who knew nothing about any of those things.
In that ancient era, designers selected fonts from a stack of thin sheets called “press type,” and added titles to pages by lining up the little letters and rubbing them onto paper like children’s fake tattoos. It was slow, tedious work and very limiting in font choices. If you were working on a project late at night, you were either stuck with whatever you already had in your stack or you had to wait until the local art supply store opened up the next morning. To make matters worse, even the really big art stores didn’t have a wide selection.
Then somebody invented desktop publishing and everything changed.
Designers now had access to a myriad of fonts – even a font called Myriad. This new development opened up the world of fonts to nearly anyone that could afford a home computer and then there were suddenly many kinds of Font People. What follows is a general breakdown of each category.
This list is intended for use much like a birdwatcher’s guide. As you encounter each, you can check them off or write notes about them in your field journal. It can also be used to help self-diagnose in case you may be afflicted with some of the worst cases of the font maladies detailed here.
The Grand Fonter. Like a Kung Fu Master, this Fonter knows how to use fonts in any situation. Their powers are unearthly and they can make an ad sell millions by a simple adjustment of the leading. Who knows the secrets they keep or what arcane knowledge they possess?
No one knows where Grand Fonters come from or if there is an ancient Font Fu school where they learn their craft, but befriending a Grand Fonter is always a good idea as long as they are the kind that uses their talents for good. If you ever encounter an evil Grand Fonter, don’t read anything they produce. They might be able to make you purchase the kind of things sold on bad infomercials or even hypnotize you into posting something embarrassing on Facebook.
Type Hogs. These are font gluttons. Their approach to using fonts is to cram as many different kinds into the same piece as possible. Their attitude is, “If God had not wanted us to use so many fonts, He would not have invented Adobe!” Their work is easy to spot because it often looks like a circus poster from the 1930s or a ransom letter from a kidnapper.
“Analyzing the trend can help you use it for your own work without being forced to merely copy.”
Reading anything in a Type Hog’s work is difficult and disjointed because we automatically assume that any bit of information presented in a different font has a different subject from the last. The exception to this might be titles or call-outs. Although it is not true, there is an old wives’ tale that says reading too many fonts on the same page can make you dizzy or even cause blurred vision.
Pretty Letter People. This isn’t really a kind of Font Person, but it is a category in the Great Pantheon of Fonters. These folks recognize that there are different kinds of letters (e.g., fancy letters, unfancy letters), but that’s about it. They think that a serif is a dirty peasant that rolls around in a little hut during the Dark Ages and talks like everyone in a Monty Python skit.
Font Freaks. This kind of Font Person is recognized by their obsession with using the wildest font they can find. It doesn’t matter if the words are readable; the most important thing is that the font looks “freaky.” They write love letters with typefaces that are best used for the names of Death Metal bands and they think Jokerman font is too plain and boring.
Font Snobs. Font Snobs pride themselves on knowing which fonts are hot and trendy. They say things like, “Arial! Who uses Arial anymore?” They also try to impress others by using technical words like descender, stress, and kerning in everyday conversation (“Please pass the mustard. The one with the tight kerning on the label.”) Like a yuppie that has just begun to learn the art of wine tasting, they love rejecting or ridiculing the common fonts or any that may have been fashionable as little as six months ago. Font Snobs are sad, lonely people.
Type Pragmatist. These Fonters are fixated on the media. They know which fonts are native to Macs and Windows, as well as how they look in each of the major browsers. They also know that serifs used to look bad on computer screens and they are still hung up on anti-aliasing. As far as they are concerned, the only font that is any good is Century Gothic – mostly because the lowercase “o” makes the closest thing to a perfect circle of any typeface. This type of Font Person needs to relax occasionally.
The Ghost of Fonts Past. Somewhere along the line, these designers were probably one of the other kinds of Fonters, but they became ghostly souls that lost their way to higher realms. No matter what sort of project they are working on, they use the same handful of fonts over and over again. The fonts they use might not be old, but may be newer fonts like Helvetica. Regardless, they only stick to those fonts that they have worked with before. There is a great deal of speculation over what causes a person to become this sort of Fonter, but most agree that some horrible design trauma in their past may lie at the root.
Font Weirdo. This Fonter is often difficult to identify because they can easily be mistaken for one of the other species without closer observation. For some reason, the Font Weirdo is fixated with a font that does not make sense. They do not choose it because it is wild (see Font Freak) or because of some technical issue (see Type Pragmatist), but they continue to use a specific font due to some strange occurrence known only to them. Perhaps they used that font on a successful project or maybe their mother used it during family outings. Whatever the reason, they try to use that particular font whenever they can. Favorites of the Font Weirdo are Bauhaus, Broadway, and anything with a slab serif.
Although there are a few more Font People types, you will find that these are the most common in the Design field. Always remember that just like the bears you may happen to encounter in a National Park, they may look cute and friendly, but they can be dangerous, especially when provoked or poked with a stick.
As for your own font-i-ness, try to use fonts responsibly and keep in mind that, “Friends don’t let friends use Comic Sans.”
