Archive for category Fonts
Some great design blog and e-zine articles
Posted by Design Drops in Fonts, Graphic design, Logo design, Website design on March 17th, 2011
It seems Design Drops wasn’t the only blog thinking about fonts and typography in the past week. A quick read around the blogiverse come up with some fantastic font and typography-related posts at some of the most popular design-related blogs and e-zines.
Hongkiat looked into Fonts Used in Logos of Popular Brands, and admitted that with thousands of free fonts available these days, it can be hard to decide on the perfect typeface. (The instantly recognisable Facebook logo above, uses Klavika OT, released in 2004).
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Over at Smashing magazine, there’s an informative post about technical web typography techniques. It reminds the reader that 95 per cent of the web is typography and goes into some detail about the rules to apply when deciding on such things as font type and size.
Meanwhile, noupe has a fantastic tutorial on creating test effects and eye-catching typography using Adobe Illustrator.
While we’re on the subject of Illustrator, which might be considered too expensive or complicated for sole-operators, onesxtrapixel, provides readers with some alternative drawing programs, such as Corel Draw and GIMP.
To finish on a more serious note, French brand Kulte has posted on Design You Trust that it has designed and is selling a t-shirt with all profits going to the Japanese earthquake appeal.
5 great new fonts
Posted by Design Drops in Fonts on March 11th, 2011
Some people dream about winning the lottery, or finding the perfect partner, or landing the killer job. Me, I dream about designing the perfect font. It would be sans serif, and have applications for both business and personal use. It would be more professional than arial or verdana, but at the same time be as cheeky as gill sans, or calibri.
So, in honour of my heroes – the world’s font designers – may I present the best new fonts in the International Typeface Corporation’s library, as well as www.myfonts.com , www.fonts.com and other online rsources, over the past few months.
Delight is a fresh typeface that takes its cue from WWII advertising scripts. Even those of us that are not fans of script fonts will be charmed by this.
Zoo 300 is Green Type’s new geometric typeface. A nice sans serif with a casual feel.
Supria Sans, designed by Hannes Von Dohren, is both utalitarian and playful, depending on the weight and whether it is italicised. A clever, universal typeface.
Another Hannes Von Dohren typface, Klint is technical in appearance, it imparts authority and draws the reader in.
No collection would be complete without an example from the master of fonts, Matthew Carter. Carter has been designing fonts for about 40 years and was the brains behind Verdana and Tahoma.
Some freebies for Christmas
Posted by Design Drops in Fonts, Graphic design, Logo design, Website templates on December 12th, 2010
It’s that time of year again. Time to drag out the Christmas designs and try and find something new and fresh involving bells, baubles, presents and the fat man in the red suit.
Finding inspiration an be tough when it seems as if everything has been done before. So Design Drops has done the leg work for you and found the best Christmas resources on the Net – one each of fonts, images, wallpaper, web templates and icons. We hope they get the creative juices flowing. And, even better, we have restricted our search to free downloads.
Enjoy!
1/ Fonts
We love seeing new and unusual fonts, and there are some really great ones out there. But The Gaea Times (http://tech.gaeatimes.com/index.php/archive/20-attractive-free-fonts-for-you-this-christmas/) has collected 20 of the best. It may be twee, but we like this 
2/Images
As you can imagine, Christmas images are a dime a dozon at the moment. The free site, stock.xchng (www.sxu.hu) has it pretty much covered, from santas to snowmen. The main image on this page is from there, and there are 999 others to choose from (20 a page, 50 pages). Happy browsing.
3/Wallpaper
How can anyone go past a site with a URL that says it all: www.freechristmaswallpapers.com With hundreds to choose from it’s hard to decide.
4/ Web templates
Honestly? There are not that many great free options out there. For some inspiration, have a look at webdiner (http://www.webdiner.com/templates/holiday/holiday3.htm), which has a small selection, including a guestbook page template and a Channukah template. Templates.com has a single free template download that pretty much ticks all the boxes. Santa? Check. Christmas tree? Check. Baubles? Check. Snowmen? Check.
5/ Icons
Designers often go to Smashing Magazine for inspiration, and this year, the popular e-zine has been rewarded with two designers (and one very intriguing Russian design studio) designing some icons for Smashing to offer its afficianadoes. The designs are by no means run of the mill and there is something there for everyone. Go to http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/17/smashing-christmas-icon-sets/
If you see any other great resources, let us know.
Merry Christmas from Design Drops.