Learning typography: introduction & resources
8 Oct, 2019
Type is the voice of our words—and typography sets the tone I get asked every so often about where to...
Typography Tips
Web typography tips covering design fundamentals and more advanced editorial design and performance techniques
Display typography: text and image, overlays and fills
30 Sep, 2019
I’ve been spending some time looking at some typography annuals, inspired by Aga Naplocha’s fantastic talk at Finch Front-End in...
Variable fonts & the new Google Fonts API
18 Sep, 2019
While I was at ATypI Tokyo a couple weeks ago, Google had some big announcements (I covered those a bit...
ATypI Tokyo: In-Variably interesting
9 Sep, 2019
There’s no way to adequately sum up what a magical week this has been. A combination of a completely new...
Light modes, user preferences, and embracing (and respecting) the cascade
31 Aug, 2019
I’ve just come back from An Event Apart in Chicago, where I was lucky enough to see a whole lot...
Zen and the art of knowing what to hold (and what to let slip—or be slippery)
23 Aug, 2019
I’ve been working for a long time to teach graphic designers how much they can do typographically on the web....
We’re doing it wrong: there is no ‘one perfect design’ or layout
16 Aug, 2019
For a very long time we’ve been chasing the ‘one layout to rule them all’ in our designs. We’ve bootstrapped,...
Digging in to dynamic typography
8 Aug, 2019
The core idea of responsive typography is that the main elements of typographic structure and hierarchy should scale based on...
A bit of fun with FF Meta
30 Jul, 2019
This week I decided to do something a little different. I’ve had these variable fonts from Monotype for a few...
Contextual Alternations (for a fraction of the price)
12 Jul, 2019
Returning this week is the third issue in our exploration of OpenType features on the web. Two weeks back we...
Getting bent: the current state of Italics in variable font support
5 Jul, 2019
One of the key objectives in the creation of the variable font specification was interoperability with static fonts, no matter...
OpenType part 2: A leg up on ligatures
25 Jun, 2019
Continuing on from last week’s introduction to OpenType features, this issue we’re going to take a look at ligatures. A...
Facts about figures: numeric styles with OpenType features
18 Jun, 2019
Over the past few months we’ve looked at a lot of different typographic techniques, approaches, and technologies. Before we get...
Typographic friction: testing the vertical limits
8 Jun, 2019
Jumping off from last week’s theme of intentionally challenging the reader with different kinds of typographic layout ideas, I thought...
Transfer friction: intentional tension
30 May, 2019
Last week I wrote about the idea of friction in design, sparked by a wonderful quote from Nina Stössinger. I’m...
Transfer friction: typography as the surface between ideas & you
24 May, 2019
A couple months back I was preparing to speak at Web Directions Design in Melbourne and a tweet came across...
Variable fonts and quirky custom axes
17 May, 2019
Now that we’ve covered the basics of what variable fonts are, how to implement them, and a bit more about...
Variable fonts, Part the Second: Optical size, custom axes, and other curiosities
10 May, 2019
Last week I finally introduced you to variable fonts a bit more formally. I covered four out of the five...