Finding and fashioning fonts

If you read last week's two posts about fonts—Fonts I: The families and their styles and Traveling and tails: Best practices—you should be pretty up-to-speed about 1) some font terminology (families, styles, tails); 2) how to travel successfully with fonts (a BIG issue among my readers, apparently); and 3) what you have to consider with your audience and the tone to project when choosing a font for your email, presentation, document—whatever. You wouldn't wear your sweaty workout clothes to work, would you? (Oh wait; I've seen that on the Microsoft campus WAY too often. An unspoken "no dress code" is often abused, in my crabby esteem. But never mind; let's plough/plow ahead.)

And now it's all led up to this:

1. GET more fonts!
2. Make your own fonts!
3. (One more): Enough about fonts!

As I tried to explain in the first two font posts last week, the font you choose says something about you, and you may want to put forth different images at different times. For example, the font you use for general email at work should be simple and readable, while the font you choose for your personal email, while still readable, can have a bit more flair. And the font you use on for your on-screen presentation may be different from the font for the printed hand-outs.

Gimme more fonts!

Windows and Office come with a set of preinstalled fonts, depending on the version you're using. But maybe you're not satisfied with what "comes with.." Maybe you need some personalization, extra pickles & onions, extra-long, extra...something. For those who want to go forth and multiply, there are plenty of places willing to either sell you or (get this) provide FOR FREE more fonts. I'm not kidding!

Now that I've gotten you all riled up about it, and before I send you to those places, a warning ("NOW a warning?" as Madeline Ashton—Meryl Streep—says in Death Becomes Her): Once you start adding more fonts to your collection...you may not be able to stop. Using as directed may cause gleeful typing or bursts of creativity. Talk to your computer if you have any questions.

Some of my favorite font foundries (and other font-focused fixes):

• Typejockeys is a graphic and type design company based in Vienna, Austria.
• ArchiveType specializes in antique typefaces found in old prints, books, and samples.
• The Font Foundry offers freeware and shareware fonts.

You can find a whole lot more on the Fonts and Products area of the Microsoft Typography site.

If you want to know how to install new fonts, visit this page for the info.

No one can say it like you can: Create your own fonts

Let me get this out of the way: I can't tell you, in the number of words it takes to write a blog post, how to create your own font. What I can do is point you in the direction of what I think are decent services and companies that enable you to do just that (and if any of these are NOT good, let me know that so that I can remove and replace):

• Your Fonts (Create a font from your own handwriting.)
• FontStruct (Build, share, and download fonts.)
• Fontlab (Here you can get Fontographer 5, a brand-new version of the classic font editing application for Mac and Windows.)
• Create your own fonts (This is a "how-to" guide from Wired Magazine.)
• Developing fonts (This is basic information from Microsoft.)

Of course there are a gazillion more, so you'll just have to do a web search, consider your budget, and go forth and multiply your fonts.

And now a confession (NOW a confession?!?): I am NOT an expert on fonts. (<Whew> I feel better; don't you?) But you want experts? I got experts: Visit Microsoft Typography and click away to your font-loving heart's content. There you can go deeper into developing fonts, finding fonts, and even get some free font tools.

My final word about fonts: There is no way I can provide total info about fonts. My suggestion is that you do a web search for "find new fonts" or "installing fonts for Office" or "create your own font" or something like that. There is a TON of good linkage out there (and some bad, of course; this IS the Internet we're talking about). Choose your sources wisely and maybe you could let me know what YOUR favorite font is (or maybe even send me a sample of your own).

Enough about fonts. Let's move on to something else. Hmm...what does Crabby have up her polyester-blend sleeve....? Have a good week, everyone.

— Crabby