July retrospective
July was the best month yet for Nice Web Type. Two @font-face demos—one with Typekit fonts. A brand-new CSS technique, explained in detail. Two no-nonsense articles on the state of web fonts. Plus, a welcome video for new readers. And that’s only the stuff from the Notes blog. Folks, thanks again for giving me your valuable attention. In case you missed anything, here’s the scoop.
From the Notes
Welcome
Meet me and learn about the most exciting bits of Nice Web Type in this one minute video.
Thoughts
- Can I use this font on my site? An FAQ-style post. I’ll be doing more like this.
- Web font licensing: the basic idea
- Type sellers, web fonts, and Typekit
@font-face demos
- Nice Web Type likes Bello Pro and Proxima Nova (Typekit)
- Nice Web Type likes Museo and Sans
- A new section of the site where these demos live
CSS techniques/observations
- RGBa, text-shadow in Safari, Firefox
- Pure CSS text gradient (no PNGs)
- CSS content property doesn’t translate
Snapped, Bookmarked, and Favored
Our Flickr group has a new moderator who happens also to be a fantastic contributor of found web type. Please welcome Tiffany Wardle, and be sure to let her know that you appreciate the screenshots. If you’re not a member yet, join our Flickr group!
Sixteen new bookmarks. I know, I know. Sixteen bookmarks is nothing. I bookmark sixteen things every day at lunch. Okay. But these are really good—writing by the likes of Jeffrey Zeldman, Andy Clarke, ILT, and other folks who are committed to understanding and explaining web typography. And that’s not all, either. Some great resources in there.
It’s a bit harder to summarize the Favorites, but suffice it to say there is plenty of interesting stuff if you follow along. This month, that interesting stuff included live coverage, by Stephen Coles and Grant Hutchinson, of the web fonts panel at TypeCon. Remember, there’s Nice Web Type mobile too.
Elsewhere
The forum topics I posted at Typophile in July generated excellent discussion. In some cases, so much discussion that I haven’t yet had a chance to reply. Often, forum threads at Typophile are full of so much expert knowledge that I have to digest things for a while before I can add to the conversation in an intelligent way; this is an excellent learning experience, and one of my favorite things. Listed below are the threads I started this month. You can always track my activity at Typophile, too.
- Nice Web Type likes: Museo and Sans
- Why must type be protected?
- Nice Web Type likes Bello Pro and Proxima Nova
- Color on screens as a typographic variable
- Legend of Raster: Glyph’s Quest for Pixel Solace
New people
Wow. Welcome to all 400+ new Twitter followers, 300+ new RSS subscribers, and thousands of casual visitors. Thanks to Jeff Veen and all of Typekit, Andy Clarke, I Love Typography, Grant Hutchinson, Cameron Moll, Tiffany Wardle, Ralf Hermann, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Alberto Calvo, Steve Avery, and many others for directing attention my way. Thanks to many twitterers, followers or not, for the reruns and kind words.
Thanks to everyone who has commented on my Notes, for the thoughtful conversation. I try to reply to you all. I don’t have time to call you all out by name here, but you know how I feel. Y’all are the blood, sweat, and tears of Nice Web Type. You’re the warriors. Keep sharing your thoughts so we can all get better at this stuff.
And thanks to you, reader, once again. You are awesome.
