typography – Page 2

December 31, 2014

2014: ImageBlog’s Year in Print, Design & More

Another year in the rearview mirror. Imageblog – our online newstand of conjecture, knowledge, experience and opinion about print, design, marketing, technology and sustainability – takes the last day of a busy year to glance back at the topics we touched on in the past 12 months. Editorially, we strive to cover topics of interest to graphic designers, print buyers and small business owners involved in empowering their brand through effective marketing. With a year-end overview, we notice a few trends in our blog:

Creative Cloud: Adobe’s Cutting Edge

Adobe moved us all to the cloud in 2014 with new versions of all our favorite software programs, new features available only in the cloud-based apps, and new ways to share, collaborate and learn interactively. Keeping up with the CC innovations could be a time-consuming job this year, but thankfully Adobe did it’s typical stellar job of integrating new tools and features in an intuitive, user-friendly interface. In June, we discussed issues relevant to print designers when Upgrading to Adobe CC and settling into the new stand-alone versions of InDesign, PhotoShop and Illustrator. Another article focused in on the changes for Illustrator, which included a reworked pen tool, pencil tool and “Live Corners.” For InDesign, we took a look at how to Auto Generate QR Codes with Data Merge (which seemed unthinkable a few years ago), the wonderful new Color Theme tool, and the evolution of Kuler into Adobe Color.

Graphic Design Tips & Tricks

As always, we love to share ideas that might make the life of a graphic designer or busy business owner a little easier when preparing files for print or marketing projects. This year that included blog posts on How to Properly Create Bleed Area for a print project, an easy strategy for using layers to keep auto page numbering on top of other elements in InDesign, and how to design and create mock-ups of product labels. We’re always on the lookout for blogs featuring great prepress tips, and are happy to share new ideas and secrets as we learn them.

Multichannel, Integrated & Diverse Marketing

Successful marketing relies more than ever on using multiple channels to reach your audience with your message and brand: print, mail, web, social media, signage, promotional products, and more. Posts this year included tips on creating engaging video content, promoting small business online, custom embroidery and screen printing, and some interesting stats on the profitability of multichannel marketing. Another post covered the importance of logo design with versatility in mind – because that logo has to work across every marketing channel.

In Memoriam

Time flies – and as it does we note the passing of great leaders in the design and print world, as well as the passage of trends and techniques in a quickly changing field. This past year, ImageBlog posted a remembrance of Al Feldstein, the well-loved and long-time editor of MAD magazine, as well as one on the great Massimo Vignelli, who almost single-handedly brought the European modernist aesthetic to American design. We also took a curious look back at some vintage artifacts from our own pre-digital Prepress Department.

Who’s Doing It Right: Great Design in the Real World

It’s always fun to discuss and learn from great design and marketing out there in the big leagues. This year we highlighted how the Traveler Beer company is using some quirky mustaches and our love of selfies to promote their Shandy beer beverages in the US. We also too a SFW look at Showtime’s “Masters of Sex” logo and the potentially touchy subject of sex, typography and marketing. In other posts we looked at the clever and controversial nature of magazine cover design, trends in choosing an actual brand or company name, and a list of design blogs that we have found inspiring.

Cheers to a great and exciting 2015 ahead. We wish you enormous success with your small business marketing ventures as we all continue to learn and innovate.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

October 1, 2014

Why We Started Double Spacing after Each Sentence, and Why Typography Says “STOP!”

The first thing I was told years ago on my very first day of work in prepress was to forget the old rule from high school typing class about using two spaces between sentences. When you learned to type on a typewriter, that became second nature and it was a hard habit to break in the beginning. But I only recently learned the reason WHY two spaces are no longer used, thanks to an excellent history of the phenomenon by Farhad Manjoo over at Slate. He makes a convincing case for why today you should “never, ever do it.” Knowing the reason always beats the the standard justification of “because that’s how it’s done today.”

First, rules in typography really are rules! Of course there are exceptions where rules are broken for good reason, but “that’s how I was taught” is not one of them! The rules of typography were agreed upon over years and years of professional development of “best practices.” In the early days of typesetting – so they tell us – the rules had not been developed yet. Printed material might have one space between sentences, it might have four. What was a “space” anyway? The size certainly varied. But as time rolled on, typesetters standardized their work and one space became the rule. Enter the typewriter.

Typewriters revolutionized business communications, and also created the need for the now outdated 2-space rule. Typewriters before the 1970s were monospaced – each letter the same width as any of the other letters or characters, unlike the type you are reading right now. Typewriters had no kerning or tracking capabilities and the result was difficulty in distinguishing sentences from each other because of all the “loose” spacing between letters. Two spaces between sentences proved to be generally more pleasing to the eye and easier to read.

So that’s the reason. But we aren’t using typewriters anymore! Even the later typewriters employed proportional type, ending the need for any extra spaces. Two spaces make an unpleasant gap in blocks of type. In the prepress department, the first step to placing and laying out a customer’s text is to do a “Find – Replace” for two spaces.

If you are still dropping in those extra spaces between sentences, you are not only saying that you are most likely over 40 and learned to type on a typewriter, but that you don’t like change very much! It really isn’t that hard a habit to break. Some specific workplaces or disciplines still cling to the two-space rule… I’ve heard the legal world is one of those. If you earn your living in one of those fields, you have an excuse. Otherwise, if you choose to hang onto the old 2-space rule, just be aware that the visual text you are creating in your emails and documents is saying things about you which you may not intend!

…and one more unbreakable rule: no indenting paragraphs with FIVE SPACES! Still see that typewriter holdover from time to time as well.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

May 28, 2014

Remembering Massimo Vignelli – One of the Greats of Graphic Design

One of the giants of 20th Century design, Italian-born Massimo Vignelli passed away on Tuesday (5/27/14) at the age of 83, after an extended illness. Credited with bringing the European modernist aesthetic to American design, Vignelli created memorable work for clients as diverse as the National Park Service, American Airlines, Bloomingdales, the New York City Subway – he even designed an entire church in New York.

Hear him in his own words below:

A hero of graphic design, Vignelli considered himself to be an “information architect” – yet his work resides in museums around the world. For a great overview of his life and work, check out the New York Times article on his death, Fast Company’s obituary tribute and of course the Vignelli Associates own website, where you will no doubt discover many familiar creations of this visionary graphic designer.

Your printer should understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

April 25, 2014February 15, 2023

Retro Gizmo: Artifacts from the Pre-Digital PrePress Department

Last year we featured a blogpost on an antique piece of bindery equipment still being used in our print shop. Today, we’re thinking about a few other vintage relics that have been gathering dust in the art department. The pre-digital days in prepress were not all that long ago – extending into the 1990s. The print industry was an early adopter of computer technology with digital imaging technologies, workflow and of course design software from the early days of Adobe, Quark, Corel, Aldus and others. Early Macs were the industry leader in digital typesetting, page layout and graphics. Both the design process and the photographic techniques used to image plates for offset printing underwent a rapid transition just before the new millennium.

The 90s saw the tail end of prepress imaging techniques that had evolved over decades. Design skills included “paste-up” – manually positioning type and graphics onto each master sheet for printing. You’ll really appreciate a straight tool line once you paste on a piece of tool-line tape by hand! For graphic elements and photographs, anything other than 100% black had to be rasterized by imagesetters into “dots” to create grayscale halftones. Full color printing required four separate pieces of developed film, “stripped” into exact position with a hand-trimmed mask. Large print shops had many full-time employees whose job was to “strip” plates for the press, usually at light tables like the one seen at the top of this post. Below are some relics from those days when graphic design was as much craft as art:

Scale for enlargements — Resizing graphics and text was often done photographically before desktop publishing – requiring some math skills for percentages of enlargement or reduction. This handy tool was invaluable.

Pre-Digital Artroom Supplies — Paste-up: manually creating a master of the printed page. Red Litho Tape was used to block any light shining through a stripping sheet. “Cold Type” supplies included decorative tool lines in the form of tape. E-rulers were handy for measuring point size of imaged type.

Art Room Supplies — Strippers were small metal tabs used to keep film in perfect alignment for processing plates. It was also the name for the folks who handled that entire process. The orange sheet here is a stripping sheet, where printable areas would be opened up (masked) to allow photographic imaging of the press plates.

T-Square and grayscale or color targets — Manual skills and a steady hand were essential skills for paste-up. The T-square and other tools helped. Also, much of the imaging process relied on traditional photographic techniques to achieve proper color and grayscale output.

The skill and craft of fine printing and effective marketing is more alive today in the digital world than ever before. Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

April 14, 2014

OUCH! ANSI Safety Signage & Graphic Design Basics

Yes, I will keep the cover closed!

Not a very attractive image but it certainly makes me want to stop and consider how not to wind up in that position. The graphic design of workplace safety signage is built around the need to be instantly understandable, not subtle or creatively compelling. They want you to get your hand out of the way – NOW! – not necessarily admire the design of the warning itself. Good design in the safety sticker world is less about aesthetics and more about what speaks universally in a loud and direct way.

So we took a look around our shop: presses, cutters, folders, inserters, laminators… all with their own safety manuals and inherent accident risks. Finding a few warning signs was no problem. As the machinery is manufactured in various places both in the US and internationally, the signage varies somewhat although most follow the recognizable ANSI guidelines. ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, is a non-profit organization that oversees standards and guidelines in nearly every economic sector. Their work helps ensure consumer safety, environmental protection, and promotes the US position in a global economy. Their standards for safety signage in the workplace were adopted by OSHA (the Occupational Safety & Hazard Administration) in 2013. These ANSI Z535 safety sign standards strive to make all safety signage more instantly understandable by combining standardized headers with explanatory text and an increased use of pictograms.

Judging by the warning signs in our shop, hands seem to be in the most danger.

Know Your Objective

Safety signage is graphic design at it’s most elemental: get instantly noticed, understood and influence behavior. Pain and the avoidance of bodily harm are generally easy selling points, so ANSI signage relies on the basics of color coding, bold typography and straightforward text. When evaluating more complex, sophisticated design projects, discerning the objective and the most straightforward means to relay that can often be a good starting point to both begin the design and later to evaluate it’s effectiveness.

Of course, there’s always that one that could use a little more work:

Adhesive vinyl labels, contour cut lettering, wide format printing, removable wall graphics and murals, floor graphics, window signage: all available from Imagesmith. ImageSmith always provides you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. We work with you to solve any marketing problems. The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER. Ask Imagesmith!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 30, 2014

The Name Game: Acronyms, Portmanteaux and Design

A business name is, in a very real sense, the cornerstone of the brand – it both drives and anchors the graphic development of the logo, the marketing and the overall design aesthetic that evolves to represent the company. In practically all cases for the designer, the company name is perhaps the one and ONLY given at the start of the design process or refresh. While you can suggest new colors, fonts, tag lines, voice and outreach methods, it would be a rare client who would let you change their company name! So that word or words become the starting point of design and inform every decision that follows. At the start of that process, long, technical or unexciting company names tend to be altered in one of two ways.

Acronyms

In line with what seems a current linguistic obsession of reducing words to initials, many successful brands rely on acronyms to fix their name in the public’s mind. Think IBM – where International Business Machines isn’t such a catchy, sleek moniker. These acronyms become part of our language. In time, we forget, if we ever knew, what the letters stand for and simply accept the newly formed “word” on it’s own merit.

CVS – Consumer Value Stores
GEICO – Government Employees Insurance Company
IKEA – Ingvar Kamprad (company founder) + Elmtaryd (his birthplace) + Agunnaryd (his current home)
3M – Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
UBS – originally, United Bank of Switzerland, though now the company says the letters are “no longer considered an acronym.”

Portmanteaux

Different from an acronym, a portmanteau is the combination of two or more words or parts of words (also called morphemes) and their definitions into a new word. Even the word “portmanteau” is a portmanteau – a combination of the the French words porter (to carry) and manteau (coat), with the combination of the two taking on a new definition apart from the French word porte-manteau, meaning coat rack. Anyway…

The meanings, as well as the sound of the original words, are also fused together. For instance, smoke and fog combine to form smog. The media seems to be enthralled with combining celebrity names (Lindsay Lohan is LiLo, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner become a new entity called Bennifer). Bromance, cankles, Frankenfood, spambot, it just goes on and on. But for marketing purposes, many successful company names were born out of the combination of sounds and meanings in this fashion.

Some combine words we all know to represent the company’s product or service, a very common trick among websites, mobile apps and the naming of pharmaceuticals:

Groupon – Group + Coupon
Instagram – Instant + Telegram
Pinterest – Pin + Interest
Travelocity – Travel + Velocity
Verizon – Veritas + Horizon
Prevacid – Prevent + Acid
Flonase – Flow + Nasal
Fruitopia – Fruit + Utopia

Others combine relevant names or products to create their new mark:

Hasbro – founders, the Hassenfeld Brothers
Adidas – founder, Adolf (Adi) Dassler
Kyocera – Kyoto Ceramics
Nabisco – National Biscuit Company
Linux – Linus (Torvalds, inventor) + Unix
Mattel – Harold “Matt” Matson and Elliot Handler

From these acronyms and portmanteaux, designers use typography as an inspirational starting point to fashion the logo and direct the brand development. The shape of the letters themselves function as design and symbolism in a way that unwieldy longer words and phrases could not. For instance, the Merle Norman logo switches the emphasis from the entire name to a graphic, art deco inspired “MN” as focal point. The typography of the acronym becomes their design.

Designers see new shapes arise from the placement of letters, or from the white space between the letters. Clever and inspired meanings are referenced from the letters when they begin to function as shapes beyond normal typography. Successful logos rely on symbolism that often works subconsciously to the viewer. The FedEx logo incorporates arrows in the negative space between the letters, a shape that often goes unnoticed. In our company name, for example, the mirror image of the “im” and “mi” merge together, a subtle symbol for the merging, fluid and integrated state of the technology and communication at which our business excels.

Whether or not your business venture uses any of these techniques in your logo and brand design, studying the way others represent themselves is instructive. Hopefully noticing the companies and products that employ this trick well – and not so well – can inspire your creativity.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 8, 2014

9 on Design: Websites and Blogs to Inspire You

So many rich, inspirational, informative websites and blogs are now online that help keep us here at ImageSmith up to date. We have many favorites, and want to share a few in this post with the hope you find and bookmark a new resource to fire up your imagination. They are a true mixture, but one common denominator is they always help to provide inspiration and insight for design and marketing ideas.

In no certain order:

inkondapaper.com

“All things PRINT all the time.” Now with that tagline, you know we love this site. The proud creation of Chicago-based Brian Szubinski and Jason Shudy, inkondapaper is full of the latest news on print, design, direct mail, technology and more. A great resource for anyone working in or relying on the creativity and innovation of the print world.

mediabistro.com

With their tagline “the pulse of media”, media bistro is an expansive site hosting many different blogs all serving as an international resource for media professionals. Keep up with news from a variety of fields you may not have time to otherwise be an expert on such as 3D printing, mobile apps, job searches, public relations, advertising, semantic web and broadcast news.

Studiodaas Magazine or www.dnjg.be

Based in Rotterdam, this site with the cute green housefly logo is rich with stories, links, downloads and information about “design, web design, typography, web development, graphic design, photography and more…” Browse around and discover great links to tutorials on innovative typography, print projects, free font downloads. The site is well curated and geared for the progressive designer.

flavorwire.com

Live from New York, Flavorwire is a slick, up-to-the-minute website that features original reporting and critique on global cultural news. Their Twitter profile says that includes: “art, books, music, and pop culture the world over. Highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between.” Click over on the right to the Design section for great news and inspiration about the field of graphic design.

rebento.com.pt

The blog of graphic designer Visco Duque from Lisbon, Portugal – Rebento never fails to feature innovative, fresh, cutting edge designs, photography and illustrations that are an inspiration. It feels like a world market of design, a great place to browse.

Inspirationhut.com

Modern magazine redesigns, world’s biggest sand artwork, engraved typography, paintings for the blind…. just a sample of the wonderful mixture of current articles on Inspirationhut. This online art and design “magazine” focuses on talent and inspiration, and also offers frequent font, psd, texture and other downloads that designers love to find.

youthedesigner.com

A “graphic design lifestyle blog,” youthedesigner’s focus is the design professional – so expect to find practical inspirational spotlights and interviews, news on competitions, workshops, and technology as well as freebies, contests, print templates, info graphics, and the like.

trüfblog.com

The blog of Trüf creative, an award winning design firm in Santa Monica, CA – “A Creative Studio Obsessed with Designing Better Brands.” Great sense of style and color, this blog always inspires and informs.

messynessychic.com

“Blogging on the offbeat, the unique and the chic” – articles here on fashion, culture and inspiration feel like a great find in neat corner shop. Another great place to browse.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 7, 2014

Acclaim or Blame, Magazine Cover Designs Show the Power of Print

If I had the time, I think I would start a blog just to feature news about dramatic, controversial, catalytic, magazine cover designs. Just in the past recent weeks, the following covers have stirred up online interest:

The New York Post, well known for a penchant for crossing the line with cover headlines, angered many with a cover featuring a murdered Jewish real estate developer and the headline “Who Didn’t Want Him Dead”
The New Yorker captured both the pride and sorrow over the passing of Nelson Mandela with a moving and popular cover by artist Kadir Nelson.
Issues of body image and charges of “fat-shaming” were provoked when Elle magazine featured actress Melissa McCarthy on its Women in Hollywood issue in an oversized coat. A subsequent Mindy Kaling cover also got Elle more online heat as many considered the close-up photo of the actress to be an attempt to downplay her figure, where ‘skinnier’ stars received the full body treatment.
Just being on the first cover of the year seems to have been newsworthy as Seth Meyers graced the cover of Time this January, spawning a number of stories about his popularity and the future of late night viewing.

Major online news outlets often feature stories on current magazine or newspaper covers that either offend, surprise or inspire. Book covers certainly sell books, but magazine and newspaper covers can take extra advantage of the heat of the moment – energized by the immediacy of unfolding events in the news. Indeed, the editorial and design goal of these publications is that priceless viral buzz, and great designers are pushing the envelope of what the public will accept with dramatic and innovative images. While the power of such newsstand pulpits as the popular magazine or newspaper cover was obvious in the pre-digital era, the fact that a printed cover is news today points to a powerful quality of print. An online image can certainly stir emotions and controversy, but why is the printed image even more powerful? How has its authenticity and power crossed the digital divide to remain so effective today amid a sea of online images and news outlets?

One aspect of print that helps to explain this is the physical, tactile nature of print. The image is not just flickering onto a computer or mobile screen, but exists as a hand-held, fixed object. Holding print feels more personal and immediate – otherwise, why would a printed card seem more personal than an e-vite? Why wouldn’t a college graduate just want their diploma sent over as a pdf? Print gives a physical existence to images and messages that digital media does not provide.

Print also turns up, often uninvited, in our daily lives. It is waiting for you at the grocery store checkout, it’s image and inherent message is talking to you from the airport newsstand, coffeehouse table, doctor’s office waiting room. That physical quality of print combined with concurrent digital, online exposure is the core of successful marketing today: integrated marketing that takes advantage of both newer AND older technology.

Ink on paper, great photography or illustration and powerful design – these covers excite, enrage, encourage, offend, inspire and influence. And they certainly do sell. Check this link for a compilation of some of the most controversial covers of all time… or this compilation that shows how today’s controversies often fade very quickly to become “no big deal.”

For a superior article on the thought, design and evolution of magazine cover art and text, read this article at Salon.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

November 26, 2013

Bending Rules – Vintage Adobe Poster, 1987

What a great old poster from Adobe in 1987 that has been around the shop here all this time. It is nice to realize the illustrated typography advice here is just as applicable today as it way back before InDesign and the Creative Cloud, and indeed anytime in the history of printing or graphic design. In essence, the message is “Rules – once learned – are made to be broken.” Or to be more precise, don’t let a strict adherence to rules blind you to the opportunities that lie beyond them.

In typography, relying on auto-kerning, hyphenation, line spacing, etc. can be convenient yet often yield jarring, hard to read results – a problem only compounded when several fonts are used together. Good design creates pleasure in reading. Whether it’s an advertisement, job resumé, wedding invitation or webpage, the goal is surely to get your message read. Often, bending away from the status quo in any creative endeavor can create nice surprises and greater success – not a bad idea to keep in mind.

Speaking of good design, check out the old retro Adobe logo circa 1987 in comparison to the one used today. Quite a change.

Consider the ways you can use inspired graphic design to market your small business. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

August 5, 2013

Online Help To Identify an Unknown Font or Typeface

Common problem: a client wants you to recreate a previously printed piece, match their corporate style, or shows you a photo or scan of some typography they like. How can you fulfill their request when you have no clue what font they are referencing?

I remember over 15 years ago, one of the most tedious, time consuming and inaccurate tasks in the prepress department involved trying to “match” or identify a customer’s typeface when resetting or designing their print jobs. Then as now, many print buyers do not necessarily know the name of the font family used for their brand. Now back in the day, we kept a print out of “Line Showings” for all the fonts to which we had access at our shop. My memory has never been anywhere near encyclopedic, so while sometimes I could luck up and recognize the correct font match, or ask a coworker to take a look, usually I had to leaf through page after page of line showings hoping to see an “a” with exactly the right terminal or a lowercase “y” with the correct tail. Needless to say this was not always successful and could eat up a lot of time. Just as Arial and Helvetica look an awful lot alike, many other typefaces closely resemble each other. I distinctly recall wishing out loud for “some kind of tool that could scan a printed font and tell you it’s name!”

Well there are several such tools out there now, and we have found them to be extremely helpful. Here are just a few that have served us well:

Whatfontis.com

This site has saved several jobs for us by correctly identifying a scan of a client’s printed words. Submit a clear, straight scan of text and after typing in the letters below each piece of the scan (as seen at the right above), the site provides a list of “matches.” In the sample we submitted, the font was very close to one named MuseoSans, but the J was not right and the O not quite round enough. Whatfontis returned a long list of possible answers, and after scanning down the list (seen below) I was able to see an exact match in Novecento Wide Light. The site provides links to founderies where the font can be purchased or if it is a free typeface, to where it can be downloaded. You can submit up to 10 samples per day at no charge, or opt to upgrade membership for a small fee and submit as many as you like. Problem solved. We look great to the client, and are confident we will provide an exact match for their branded style.

Whatthefont.com

This webtool over at Myfonts.com works very similarly to Whatfontis.com, whereby you submit a scan then are presented with possible matches. As a test, I tried the same scan I submitted to the previous site. Whatthefont returned five possible matches: all very close but none were an exact match of Novecento. This one sample, however, in no way shows which tool is most effective. Use them both as a resource for font identification. Often, a close match is all that is needed when a client is seeking a similar look rather than an exact match that might require you to purchase the new font.

Typophile.com

A different approach: crowdsourcing your question to a community of font experts! On this site for all things typographic, just quickly set up your user account, navigate to the Type ID Board page and post your scan. Check back to read your responses and even an ensuing discussion about your font from people who share a knowledge, experience and love of typography. You can also join in the discussion and share your knowledge. Judging by the timeline, a lot of folks would welcome your help!

You may find other useful online tools to identify your unknown typefaces. These are just a small sampling of ones that have worked for us at ImageSmith. With all your marketing issues, your printer should be able to provide you the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail and integrated marketing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.