Design & Typography
Robin Williams has been a friend of the Design Center for over a dozen years. Her bestselling, award-winning books include type and typography lessons we all can profit from. She has also written articles for numerous popular magazines and has taught traditional and electronic typography for many years.
Robin's Articles
- Where has all the good type gone? Not even big-budget design can guarantee good type. What's the problem?
- Font Flexibility with Macromedia Fontographer Wish that hyphen was longer? Fix it for good.
- Mix & Match The challenge of getting typefaces to play together nicely.
- Don't Underestimate Type Trends Using outdated typefaces is like wearing a beehive hairdo.
- Slab Serifs Slab serifs have strength and a no-nonsense attitude.
- Color in Black & White Take advantage of the color contrasts in strict black and white.
- And Now For Something Old-Fashioned Oldstyle figures just never seem to be out of style.
- Hybrid Fonts: Opposites Attract Typographic blending of tradition and technology.
- Dash to the Rescue There's more than one way to set a dash.
- The Dang Apostrophe Ubiquitous, indispensable, and utterly misused.
- Typographic Communication on the Web The bare essentials for using type online.
- What the Heck's an Uncial? Discover the history and revival of the world's first lowercases.
- Get Emphatic! Every page contains at least a few words that need to stand out.
- Improving Readability A designer can improve the readability of any face.
- The Official Typeface of the New Millennium What font will we be using for the next 1000 years?
- Legendary Letters P22 creates faces based on the handwritings of the great masters.
- Build Your Starter Kit With so many typefaces to choose from, how does one begin?
- Special Characters Get at those goodies hidden inside your fonts.
- A Good Font Is Hard To Find The inside skinny on type at the top.
- Expert Typography Creating great type that is above the average.
- Big Guns Fonts that get bigger and smaller at the same time.
- Italic vs. Tilted This is not your father's slanted roman.
- Blackletter Typographic textures of the gothic kind.
- Typewriter Fonts Why would you want it to look like a typewriter?
- Multiple Masters Big font choice at the touch of a slider bar.
More...
- Applying Your Identity - Identifying your identity isn't easy, but it is essential. Try to convey that identity in all of your marketing materials. In this article, award-winning author Robin Williams explains how to state your identity in your business cards and stationary.
- Identity Template Files To use these templates, you need either Adobe Illustrator or PageMaker (to buy these programs, visit www.adobe.com). Business card template, Illustrator version (Mac; Win). Business card template, PageMaker version (Mac; Win) ... Letterhead template, Illustrator version (Mac; Win). Letterhead template, PageMaker version (Mac); Win).
- Build A Better Business Card (Link to PDF File)
- Project: Logos - some common techniques and themes of logo design that never get old because they are capable of unlimited variations and interpretations.
- Tips on Designing Newsletters - Excerpted from Adobe's The Non-Designer's Guerilla Marketing CD
- Tips on Designing Web Pages - Excerpted from Adobe's The Non-Designer's Guerrilla Marketing CD
- Navigation Design - The focus of good navigation design is organization, not graphics. In this article, authors Robin Williams and John Tollett provide some basic rules and examples to help you become a better interface designer.
Recommended Books
- The Non-Designer's Design Book, 2nd Edition, the essential beginners' guide to graphic design
- Design Workshop, walks you through all phases of graphic design
- Design and typographic principles By Robin Williams & Carole Quandt
- The Non-Designer's Type Book By Robin Williams & Nancy Davis
-
A Blip in the Continuum Celebrating that new wave of
type design called grunge. By Robin Williams & John Tollett - How to Boss Your Fonts Around so they don't manage you. By Robin Williams
- The Non-Designer's Scan & Print Book By Robin Williams & Sandee Cohen
-
The Non-Designer's Web Book An easy guide to creating, designing,
and posting your own web site. By Robin Williams & John Tollett - The Mac Is Not a Typewriter A style manual for creating professional level type on your Macintosh. By Robin Williams
- Beyond the Mac Is Not a Typewriter More typographic insights & secrets. By Robin Williams
- The Little Mac Book One of the best-selling guides for Macintosh beginners ever. By Robin Williams
-
Beyond The Little Mac Book The sequel to one of the best
Macintosh books ever written. By Robin Williams & Steve Broback
Bibliography
- Typographic Design: Form and Communication - by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Phillip Meggs; Paperback: 305 pages, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 1st, 2nd, 3rd editions (1976 - 2002)
- Type Sense: Making sense of type on the computer - by Susan G. Wheeler, Gary S. Wheeler; Paperback: 230 pages, Publisher: Printice Hall, Pearson Education; 2nd edition (2001)
- A Type Primer - by John Kane -- Paperback: 196 pages, Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1st edition (September 12, 2002)
- Designing With Type - by James Craig, Paperback: 176 pages, Publisher: Watson-Guptill; 4th edition (1999)
- Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works - by Erik Spiekermann, E. M. Ginger -- Paperback: 192 pages; Publisher: Adobe Press - 2nd edition (July 15, 2002)
- Type Rules - by Ilene Strizver; Hardcover: 160 pages, Publisher: North Light Books; 1st edition (2001)
- Type and Image - The Language of Graphic Design - by Philip B. Meggs; Paperback: 192 pages, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; 2nd edition (1992)
- The Elements of Typographic Style - by Robert Bringhurst; Paperback: 320 pages, Publisher: Hartley & Marks; 2nd edition (1997)
- Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces - by Philip B. Meggs (Editor), Roy McKelvey (Editor) -- Hardcover: 192 pages, Publisher: North Light Books; 1st edition (2002)
- Type In Use: effective typography for electronic publishing - by Alex W. White -- Paperback: 207 pages, Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; 2nd edition (1999)
- Typography - by John Lewis, Paperback: 96 pages, Publisher: Studio Books, London; 2nd edition (1967)
- A Typographic Workbook: A primer to History, Techniques and History - by Kate Clair, Paperback: 176 pages, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; 1st edition (1999)
- Lettering Tips for Artists, Graphic Designers and Calligraphers - by Bill Gray; Paperback: 128 pages, Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company; 1st edition (1980)
- Encyclopedia of Source Illustrations - Edited by Johann Georg Heck; Hardbound: 234 pages; Publisher: Morgan & Morgan, Inc., (1972)
- Type from the Desktop - by Clifford Burke, Paperback: 225 pages, Publisher: Ventana Press; 1st edition (1990)
See similar titles in the Typography department Keywords: Typography: type, fonts, faces, how-to use type, selecting type, using fonts,
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