How to Read a Specimen Page Like a Designer
Turn a polished font presentation into a practical inspection of character coverage, styles, numbers, features, files, and real layout behavior.
5 min read2/12/2025
70 essays on type
Type, out loud.
Friendly guides to choosing fonts and making everyday designs look their best.
70 posts
Why Geometric Sans-Serifs Can Read as “Tech”
The technology association comes from design history and repeated use, not a universal psychological response to circles and straight lines.
5 min read2/9/2025
Type for E-commerce: Clear Products, Prices, and Checkout
Make shopping information easier to understand with practical typography for product details, prices, forms, totals, and order confirmation.
5 min read1/31/2025
Five Free Display Fonts for Posters—and Where Each Stops Working
A practical shortlist of Bebas Neue, Archivo Black, Anton, Bricolage Grotesque and Oswald, with specific jobs and limits for each.
5 min read1/28/2025
Kerning, Tracking and Leading: Three Different Spacing Problems
Worked examples show when to fix a letter pair, a whole line or the distance between lines—and why those adjustments are not interchangeable.
5 min read1/25/2025
Editorial Typography: Print Lessons for Pages, Reports and Interfaces
Borrow print’s attention to hierarchy, measure, captions and production proofs without forcing a fixed-page layout onto the web.
5 min read1/22/2025
Accessible Typography: Contrast, Resizing, Reflow and User Spacing
Separate WCAG AA requirements from design preferences, then check whether real text survives zoom, narrow layouts and spacing overrides.
5 min read1/13/2025
Pairing a Serif With a Sans: Five Combinations With Clear Roles
Concrete serif–sans pairings, practical alternatives and a comparison method that goes beyond matching attractive specimens.
5 min read1/7/2025
Free or Paid Fonts? Decide by Rights, Coverage and Project Risk
A licensing-first framework for comparing open-source and commercial fonts without guessing prices or assuming paid means better.
5 min read12/26/2024
Build a Brand Type System People Can Actually Reuse
Define roles, tokens, responsive behaviour and ownership so typography survives new content, new channels and real handoffs.
5 min read12/23/2024