Resources for Students
A fascinating read into the undertakings of Nick Sherman in his Advanced Letterpress class a while back. Along with the process he went through to get the physical output you see above, a read of this will give you more insight into type and typography.
It’s been far too long since I visited iLoveTypography.com, and I was in for a feast when I checked it out this morning. Their first post in 2008 has fifteen amazing examples of typography on the web - not necessarily great web design, but the type itself. Great design does usually does follow great typography, so visit and learn!
Really wonderful set of type sketches and instruction over at typeworkshop.com. I’ve been studying this type of thing for years andI still learned a few things - definitely worth a study and a bookmark.
Type Basics @ Typography Workshop –> [via I Love Typography]
This interactive site will help when you’re just not sure what font will look right with your text. Type in custom text and 500 preview images will automatically update showing “the web’s top 500 free fonts.” Clearly, once you get into the industry, buying a few staple fonts is the way to go - but as a student in a hurry, this really can’t be beat.
Fonts 500 –> [via tutorialblog.org]
Here’s a neat twist on the lettering process - first the requisite sketch, then creating vectors in Illustrator - and then bringing the artwork into 3ds MAX for a text effect which is then brought back into Illustrator and Live Traced. I’d never have thought to do that, but it looks pretty fantastic.
Created by Vancouver Film School students Ryan Uhrich and Marcos Ceravolo. Quick and dirty; watch it a couple of times if this is new to you!
Two-minute animated introduction to typography –> [via Design Observer]
Some industrious photographer went out and found arrangements of buildings, and took photographs to simulate the alphabet. This site gives credit to a Jack Turner, and this site, while I can’t exactly translate the language, seems to credit a Lisa Rienermann.
In any case, they’re really interesting and you should take a closer look. Typography is everywhere, and letterforms can be made from nearly anything 
Beautiful fonts released last year, set in real headlines and with reviews by real designers. These are fantastic and worth a look.
