Friday 1 March 2013

50 Fresh and Beautiful Fonts From 2011

04:32 Posted by admin No Comments

Finding the right font for your design work can often be really frustrating and time consuming. For that reason you should always have plenty of various fonts in your toolbox. When was the last time you downloaded a nice and pretty font? It’s time for you to update your font library with some fresh and stunning fonts. This article presents 50 fresh and beautiful fonts from 2011 to enliven your design work as well as a few typography tips. The list contains many smooth and solid fonts that are suitable for web design as well as some funkier and nontraditional fonts that will add that extra something to your digital art. And did I mention that all the fonts are completely free? (some fonts might be available only as demo versions). Also here are a few tips to consider when working with type.

Tips

The right font

As you may already know choosing the right font is often the hardest part of a design that involves typography. But that’s only half of the story. In both digital art and web design you’ll often have to use more than one font. For digital art typography is used more as an artistic element and in web design you have to think about elements like headlines, remarks, call to action and many more things. Don’t get me wrong and stuff your website with a dozens of fonts. Use a few but select them carefully. Remember to take into consideration things like dynamics, font moods and even things like mobile browsers.

Choosing the right font is extremely important in minimal web design because type is what basically will make your website. Oliver James Gosling has chosen a large strong font for title and a smaller smoother one for navigation. The whole website is using about five fonts which is absolutely enough. The typography used in this website creates the right mood and dynamic.

Formatting

Styling and formatting is as important as the choice of the font. Even some of the prettiest and most user friendly fonts can become unpleasing if the styling and layout is awful. One of the tools to avoid messy typography is by using a grid. A grid is especially important in print and web design. Whether you use guidelines in Photoshop or 960 Grid System with CSS think of the positioning, layout, margins and structure. Your eyes will be the best judge.

Francisco Inchauste’s personal website is a great example of efficient use of grid system. The text is divided in three main sections and it’s clear and easy to read. Also other things like headlines, opacity and capital letters makes this seemingly plain text styled and formatted perfectly.

The details

It’s often the tiny little details that separate good typography from excellent. Kerning, tracking, font sizes – all these factors matter especially if we’re talking about web design. In web design all the little details count and they can either enhance or spoil your design. Pay attention to things like spacing between the lines, quote marks and hyperlinks. Typography is a subtle yet powerful science which consists of many tiny details that definitely aren’t insignificant.

You can see an efficient text styling and polished details in the website of Revista Vlov. The font is subtle and smooth and the styling makes it pleasant to read. Line height and kerning are just fine and the transparent boxes give the text that solid and complete look. Also the more important words are nicely highlighted with a different color.

Harmony

Most of the time type is not going to be the only thing that will shape your artwork. This point combines all of the previous and many more typographic rules. You can create a perfect type fitting all typography standards however if it’s not going to interact with other parts of the design it’s pretty much useless. Choosing the right fonts will play a big role, but you have to pay a lot of attention to details and the overall look as well. Pay attention to colors, shapes, images and free space. In web design white space is going to be your biggest friend. Be sure to treat it accordingly.

Pixelschupser Medien design agency has achieved perfect balance and harmony with the use of typography. They’re using a few, yet carefully, selected fonts that do their job greatly. You can easily scan over the services they’re offering and the main content is legible as well. When you look a this website there’s that lovely feeling of completeness. The type in the background is also a neat solution.