Session 15 [Mon 241108] - Keyword:Iconic Stage2 Briefing/ Sourcing & Installing Fonts/ Glyphs/ Careful Type Assessment

Homework
Today we got back on track with a very efficient beginning to K:I Stage 2. Thankyou all for your focus today.

For Wednesday you are required to apply careful type parameters to your chosen copy. Remember to steer clear of the artist name as your text and to use Album/ Song titles, lyrics, associated words and phrases. Please collect what you do in Illustrator and refer to the  Gentle site  for a reminder of possible parameters to test your word against.

Sourcing & Installing Fonts

Sourcing Fonts

To the right, as you already know, you will find sources for commercial, freeware, and shareware fonts. You also have access to the AIU fonts in your user login. There are online resources for converting your handwriting into a type-able font, although there may not be time to take advantage of such services this term. Finally, there are font-finding resources to help you locate most fonts you might need. These final resources are likely to serve you well if you choose to make a career of Graphic Design or related discipline.

There are 3 principal type technologies for Apple computers - Postscript, Truetype, and Open Type formats. These three formats represent the history of fonts on your Mac. The most recent format, Opentype gives you access to tens of thousands more characters or glyphs per font than either Postscript or Truetype. However, there are many more available Postscript and Truetype fonts than there are Opentype, as it is a younger technology.

Font Installation

There are two key locations that should concern you when it comes to font installation. The System Font Directory and your User Font Directory. The first you should know enough about to leave it alone and the second should be used to house all your self-installed fonts.

Installed with OSX is the rudimentary but powerful font management application, Font Book. This, along with Extensis's Font Doctor program used to check for corrupt font files, is all you need to control the fonts on you system.

To install fonts on your mac, locate the font file in the finder and double click the file icon. You will be shown a sample window of the typeface to be installed. Just click the install button to open Font Book and install the font. The font is automatically put in your User Font directory [User>Library>Fonts]. Take some time to investigate the key features of font book.

Text Input

Once installed your font is now available to any application that uses fonts on your computer. It will appear in the font list. In Adobe Illustrator, the focus app of Keyword:iconic Stage2, pressing Apple T will activate the Character panel. The font list available via this professional type panel shows you the font name in the style of the face and also provides icon indicators for the font format. Useful.

Pangrams

We also looked at pangrams as part of our quick tour around Font Book.

Glyphs
In both Illustrator and InDesign you have access to the Glyphs palette [Type > Glyphs]. You will never again want for a particular punctation, ligature, or symbol!

Gentle:careful Type Procedure
[Please refer to your notes for this segment for now]