26 February: Typefaces and Fonts

Giambattista Bodoni, Italian printer and typeface designer was born on this date in 1740. Here are 10 things you might not know about fonts and typefaces.

1. What's the difference between a typeface and a font? Is there one, even? Actually, yes. What we often refer to as fonts - Times Roman, Garamond, Arial and so on are technically typefaces while the font is size, weight and style of a typeface, eg. Times Roman 12 point bold. The word font comes from a French word for something that has been melted, such as casting metal at a type foundry.
2. Before we had computers and desktop publishing, publishers and printers had to have typefaces made out of wood or metal by a type foundry. The foundries would employ, or commission, designers to come up with new and better ones.
3. Studies have shown that if you want people to believe and trust what you say, the best font to use is Baskerville, because it appears formal and solemn. This typeface dates to 1757 and was created by John Baskerville for the Cambridge University Press.
4. Giambattista Bodoni was the court typographer for Charles III of Spain. He designed many different typefaces during the late 18th century and published several books full of his designs. The Bodoni typeface we use today was adapted from his designs by Morris Fuller Benton in 1907.
5. Helvetica has been found to be one of the easiest fonts for people with dyslexia to read. Courier, Arial and Verdana are also good. While it's often said that serif fonts are easier to read than non-serif ones, a plethora of studies have been done which lead to the conclusion that it actually makes no difference.
6. Helvetica was originally called Haas-Grotesk when it was first released in 1957. It was so called because it had been commissioned by the Haas Type Foundry and was based on an earlier typeface called Akzidenz-Grotesk. The name got changed to the Latin word for Swiss, Helvetica, to make it more marketable. It obviously worked as Helvetica is one of the most popular typefaces around. It's used for US government forms and New York Subway signs, among other things. It was even used in the film Titanic for pressure gauge labels, which annoyed the purists.
7. Times New Roman is another ubiquitous typeface which was designed by Stanley Morrison in 1929 because the Times newspaper in London had been criticised for being hard to read. Ironically, the paper doesn't use Times New Roman any more. It has chopped and changed since 1972 and at time of writing uses Times Modern.
8. If you read Harry Potter, Dr Seuss or my novels, you'll have seen Garamond, a typeface based on the designs of French designer Claude Garamond, who lived in the 16th century.
9. The one people love to hate, Comic Sans, has only been around since 1994. It was designed by a Microsoft employee named Vincent Connare who didn't think that the speech bubble for a cartoon dog looked quite right in Times New Roman and after looking at some comic books, designed Comic Sans within a week. A 2009 Wall Street Journal article claimed Connare is "alternately amused and mortified" at the many (not always appropriate) uses of his design.
10. I'll finish with a few words associated with typefaces, fonts and typesetting and where they come from. Leading is the word for the space between lines of text and comes from the fact that typesetters used to use strips of lead to separate the lines - Lead being a soft metal that would compress as lines of text were crammed in. Kerning is adjusting the spaces between letters in order to make them look better. This word comes from the French word "carne" meaning the angle of a quill or pen. Italic type is a sloping font used for emphasis or to distinguish some of the text. Unsurprisingly, this style was first used in Italy, by Venetian printer Aldus Manutius in 1500.

Settling the Score

Another collection of short stories, even more murder and mayhem with carol singers, an orchestra out for revenge, a sinister magic stone and a haunted mansion.

Available on Amazon:
Paperback            E-book


A Tale of Two Sisters

During a battle with supervillains, a horrific accident leaves the Warner family with no option but to believe their youngest daughter, Jessica, is dead. It doesn't occur to them that the bad guys could, or would, save her.

Jessica wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she came to be on a space station with two bionic legs, a bionic arm and a bionic eye. She is told her family abandoned her and is sent back to Earth with a mission - to kill them. While Jessica wants to kill her family, along with the twin boys who once rejected her, she knows what the Alliance of Supervillains are asking her to do is a suicide mission. She decides to get her revenge in her own way.

As Jessica puts the first part of her revenge plan in motion, she finds herself with an agonising decision to make. Before she can decide, the Alliance come for her, determined to make her do their bidding. This time, it's the Alliance who leave her, crippled and at the mercy of the Warner family, who have no idea who the Alliance's Black Rose really is.

Jessica finds herself having to re-think her decisions in light of what she now learns about her family, the Alliance, the twins, and herself. It would appear the Alliance have left her with an unwanted and permanent reminder of her time with them. Or have they?

Jessica's older sister, Jill, knows her destiny is to be a doctor and specialise in bionics and genetic variant medicine. She is also hopelessly in love with Christopher, Crown Prince of Galorvia. Can their romance survive the lies Christopher told her when they were both at school, an unplanned pregnancy and Sophie, the wannabe princess who comes between them?

Available on Amazon
Paperback

E-book