Typography

Being a webdesigner, most of my typographic duties revolve around choosing the appropriate web font for the situation. Since both Verdana and Trebuchet MS have their limited uses – one from an aesthetic and the other from a legibility point of view – most of the digital typesetting this year was done in Helvetica/Arial. On the serif side, there’s really only one viable choice and that is Georgia.

Last year classic typeface Helvetica got its own feature film – which was surprisingly amusing to watch. I went from scoring 4 to scoring 10 on the Arial vs. Helvetica quiz; not exactly the high point of the year, but something every designer should be able to do.

As far as websites about web typography go, I found Typesites to be a valuable resource for a critical look at some of the best typography on the internet. Be sure to check out their articles about Gaper’s Block and Monocle. The other go-to place is definitely I Love Typography.

The typefaces of Hoefler & Frere-Jones attracted my eye throughout the year, but I never got around to actually using them. When you’re designing a magazine, it’s justified to put a few hundred dollars on the table for that magazine’s typeface, but in the web world, there’s rarely budgets for typeface purchases. Maybe we designers need to be a bit more demanding in the purchase of decent material to work with, but then again, good things can be found cheaply or even for free.