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TIP: Keep your sign restricted to maximum 3 fonts.
When designing a sign or
graphic, 3 fonts choices is more visually correct and superior than over 3
fonts in design.. Signs should be reliant on speed of readership, clarity
of message and retention.
If you use an excessive
number of fonts in different lines, your message will quickly become
cluttered.
Choose your font carefully.
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Trade Term:
 Descender
The part of lowercase letters (such as y, p, and q) that descends
below the baseline of the other lowercase letters in a font face.
In some typefaces, the uppercase J and Q also descend below the
baseline.
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Trade Term:
Kerning:
The adjustment of
horizontal space between individual characters in a line of text.
Adjustments in kerning are especially important in large display
and headline text lines. Without kerning adjustments, many letter
combinations can look awkward. The objective of kerning is to
create visually equal spaces between all letters so that the eye
can move smoothly along the text.
Below
shows original kerning as set by control points.
Below
shows correct kerning after manual alteration / adjustment.
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Using Fonts in Signage
The fonts used by QuickSmart Signs Banners and other sign
professionals are 'base fonts' or 'True Type Fonts' created and suitable
for enlargement (scalable) without losing clarity, weight of stroke, angle
and path direction.
Signs are generally
manufactured in large dimensions and choosing a correct method of font
manipulation is critical. True Type or Scalable fonts allow further
manipulation and processing suitable for large sizes.
Design Programs such as
CorelDraw ® and Illustrator ® are commonly used and preferred by Sign
Companies as they offer more flexibility and creativity to manipulate
fonts and graphics. If you wish to attain a career in sign production,
learning the principles of these programs will greatly assist your
opportunities.
Each Font is a set of lines
and curves dictated by a control point(s) as seen above.
Mastering the output quality of lines and curves, adjusting kerning and
spacing is critical to ensure readership over sign viewing distances.
Master Control Point:
refers to the (often hidden) control point that allows hand movement for:
1.Letter Spacing, 2.Line Spacing and 3. Kerning, 4.Upwards and Downwards
movement on individual letters. Keeping in mind that multiple Master
Control Points can be selected using a pointer device (mouse) and moved in
a group.
If you master the skills of font manipulation, creativity has no limit.
This logo was created using 3 fonts, manipulated control points
and 'snap to' guidelines. The black control handles seen were used
to size the letter P.
The Descender of the f
was manipulated using 'node edit' tools via selecting the node
control points in a downward movement.
The in-fills were created by 'breaking apart' the control points
and replacing with color.
This logo is fully scalable, and originally based on fonts.
Next article "Laser
Cut Letters - Path Direction"
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Fonts, Letter Styles, Typefaces
What is a font?
A design for a set of characters. A font is
the combination of typeface and other qualities, such as size, pitch, and
spacing. For example, Arial is a typeface that we are using in this page,
but within Arial, there are many fonts to choose from--different sizes,
italic, bold, and so on. The height of characters in a font is measured in
points, each point being approximately 0.35 millimeters or 1/72 inch.
Fonts are a complete collection of letters, punctuation marks, numbers,
and special characters with a consistent and identical typeface, weight
(Roman or bold), posture (upright or italic) and font size. Technically,
font still refers to one complete set of characters in a given typeface,
weight, and size, such as Helvetica italic 12 - but the terms has come to
be used interchangeably for referring to typefaces or letter styles or
graphic themes or font families.
What are Scalable Fonts?
True Type Fonts - Scalable Fonts
A Scalable type technology built into
Windows 3.1 and Apple's System 7.
Scalable fonts rely upon nodes, bezier curves and determination points to
create their basic shape, spacing, weight of stroke and crisp looks. When
using TTF fonts, you can enlarge without losing clarity or introducing
pixel enlargement problems.
TIP: Only use
TTF or other Scalable Fonts for all works your complete.
Font Family:
The collection of faces that were designed together and intended to be
used together. For example, the Garamond font family consists of roman and
italic styles, as well as regular, semi-bold, and bold weights of stroke.
Each of the style and weight combinations is called a face.
SCREEN FONTS> Screen fonts are suitable for your computer monitor only.
They are a pixel based method and will not scale to large sizes. Screen
fonts are not suitable for any commercial project production and can not
be accepted by 3rd party bureau's.
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