fonts – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Type on Screen: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Developers, & Students

By Scott J. Pearson | April 24, 2022April 24, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Since Gutenberg, fonts have spent a lot of effort at perfecting how words appears on print. However, in the last several decades, screens have taken over. Thus, there has been a subtle shift in paradigms. For example, humans read text on screens typically further away than print; thus, designs for screens need to have a larger font size. To explore these nuances, Lupton (an established expert in typography) and her students at the Maryland Institute…

On Web Typography

By Scott J. Pearson | February 19, 2022February 19, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Typography, or the science of fonts, has always been an important vehicle to communicate ideas. Printing presses used typography to achieve mass communication. In the age of Internet instantaneity, nothing has changed much as good fonts continue to be central means to convey concepts with the masses. Unfortunately, many users still default to a few common fonts like Helvetica/Arial or Times New Roman. In this book, Santa Maria seeks to free designers – and also…

History Software-Technology

From Gutenberg to OpenType: An Illustrated History of Type from the Earliest Letterforms to the Latest Digital Fonts

By Scott J. Pearson | August 9, 2020August 9, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Although I am not a graphic designer, I have followed graphic design and computerized fonts since the 1990s. Thus, many of the font-forms referenced in this book are familiar to me. This book narrates how letters have historically been formed by technology. As the title implies, it starts with ancient scripts, continues with Gutenberg’s printing press in the 1400s, and closes with modern fonts digitized in OpenType on computers. Dodd focuses her energies on how…