Link Banana

I can’t count the number of times I’ve wondered what the difference was. By way of analogy:

When you talk about how much you like a tune, you don’t say: “That’s a great MP3”; you say: “That’s a great song”. An MP3 is the delivery mechanism, not the creative work, just as a font is the delivery mechanism, and a typeface is the creative work.

(via Cameron.io)

I’m a little disappointed by how obvious all the character choices in this sketch were, but I did laugh a few times anyway.

(via Daring Fireball)

@#$%^&*!, there’s a word for that?

The term is grawlix, and it looks to have been coined by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker around 1964. Though it’s yet to gain admission to the Oxford English Dictionary, OED Editor-at-Large Jesse Sheidlower describes it as “undeniably useful, certainly a word, and one that I’d love to see used more.”

… Until its OED entry is solemnized, we’ll have to settle for this definition on Wiktionary: “grawlix, n. A string of typographical symbols used (especially in comic strips) to represent an obscenity or swear word.” I don’t think I’ll ever look at a character set quite the same way again.

(via kottke)

I’m fascinated by typography even though I don’t understand a thing about it. This link includes a visual of the following:

They speak the arm (of, say, an E), the crotch (of an M), which could further be described as an acute crotch or an obtuse crotch, the ear (of some g’s), which might be a flat ear or a floppy ear, the eye (of an e), the leg (of a k), the shoulder (of an n), the tail (of a j or a Q), and the spine (of an S).

Kris Sowersby’s explanation of how he makes a font is worth seeing. As someone increasingly interested in this kind of stuff, I found it an approachable introduction (that’s not to say that I intend to do it). On every geek’s favorite part of the process:

Everybody talks about it, but unless you’ve actually gone through the process of kerning a typeface then you have no real idea of what is involved. It’s dead boring, but essential! Kerning, put simply, is the art of adding or subtracting space between pairs of letters. This is the very last thing that I do in the design process—everything should be checked and finished before this happens.