Jungle Book Font Software Lets Designers

Because of that, the introduction offers a warning: Think carefully about whether a particular font suits your requirements and creative needs.

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Close Alert Close Sign In Search Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Margaret Rhode s Design 03.25.2016 01:00 PM A Guide to the Beautiful, Elaborate Jungle of Script Typefaces Script Fonts, a new book out from Laurence King Publishing, is a guide to the script-font jungle.

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Chevron Chevron Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing Script-Fonts-BOOK-198.jpg A new book called Script Fonts documents over 300 fonts, none of which are print.

If youre an iPhone user, youre probably staring at San Francisco all day.

The New York Times once used Times New Roman; now it runs stories in Georgia.

Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing Such typefaces get more playing time because theyre far easier to read, both on small screens and at a distance.

As type designers Karin and Bertram Schmidt-Friderichs put it in the introduction to Script Fonts, these faces bring personality and authenticity to printed material of all kinds, from business cards to flyers and packaging to adverts.

The book, available next month from Laurence King Publishers ( 40 ), features more than 300 scripts.

It was written by designer Geum-Hee Hong, who doesnt say much about the people who created the them.

Its more of a catalog---a guide to the script-font jungle, to quote the introduction---than a definitive survey of all script typefaces.

Script Fonts divides typefaces into several categories, such as handwriting, Italian and French italics, English copperplate, and marker scripts.

Whatever the category, each face, at some level, originated with handwriting.

There are imperceptible differences in how people write letters, and type designers are forever pursuing that kind of nuanced character.

Digital technology makes it easy to create such subtleties, and there are fonts based on everything from Picassos penmanship to the handwriting found on Cold War-era political flyers in Czechoslovakia.

Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing From the first handwriting, the evolution in script typefaces was tied to advancements in technology.

To accelerate the handwriting process, scribes in Italy began working in cursive.

In the 1500s, regional variations began to develop in cities like Rome, Florence, and Paris.

The invention of sharp, flexible pen nibs gave script more flourish.

This style of writing could be engraved onto copper plates for easy reproduction, hence the name English Copperplate.

Jungle Book Font Software Lets Designers

Modern software lets designers create new type shapes and reimagine familiar ones from the past.

Hood Ornament, a typeface from dafont.com, for example, is based on the metal nameplates affixed to automobiles in the 1950s.

These typefaces vary wildly, but have one significant common denominator: their letters connect to one another.