Typekit, a company doing its part to help bring better typography to the web, has just announced an new partnership with Adobe.
The partnership means that Typekit users can now integrate famous fonts like Myriad, Cooper Black and Adobe Garamond into their own sites and designs.
Adobe took the time to optimize and hint its collection of fonts for the screen, ensuring that type looks its best. The web fonts support the same languages and scripts as their counterparts on the desktop.
We spoke with Bryan Mason from Typekit and he expanded more on the process of making these fonts web-ready: “Adobe has been working on the hinting and screen rendering of these (and others to follow) for months. On a pixel-specific level, Adobe reviews each font character-by-character, weight-by-weight. It is amazingly meticulous work — and the results show.” Mason also said new Adobe fonts will be added to the service as they are web-ready.
We also spoke with Jeffrey Veen from Typekit about what the company — which is celebrating its one-year anniversary — has planned going forward. He said in part: “We’re also adding more and more features that help designers focus on creativity and not compatibility. Soon, we’ll be launching some amazing CSS3 tools that not only focus on webfonts, but all of the new browser capabilities.”
These are the Adobe fonts that are now available to Typekit users:
Adobe Garamond
Adobe Text
Bickham Script
Caflisch Script
Chaparral
Cooper Black
Cronos
Garamond Premier
Hypatia Sans
Minion
Myriad
Myriad Condensed
News Gothic
Poplar
Rosewood
Rosewood Fill
Trajan
Voluta Script
Not all fonts and weights are available for all user plans, but select Adobe fonts are available at every tier.
What do you think of Adobe and Typekit’s announcement? Do you plan on integrating Myriad Pro in your designs? Let us know!
As smartphone sales continue to soar, more and more developers are focusing their efforts on building applications for mobile devices. Whether it is a native application or a mobile-optimized website, mobile innovation is taking place at a breakneck pace.
Native applications still have their place, but increasingly, the number of different device types, operating systems, and screen sizes make developing optimized mobile web apps more and more enticing. Historically, there has been a trade-off between the rapid, iterative, cross-platform nature of web applications versus the more standard UI, support for gestures, and multi-touch and hardware optimizations on the native side.
Fortunately, a number of different frameworks are making it easier and easier for developers to create mobile web applications that look and feel more like native apps. Here are six examples. If you don’t see your favorites on the list, add them in the comments below.
While many may still prefer print for long-form reading, e-books are gaining popularity as a worthy digital alternative. Aside from all the usual benefits of digitizing a book (faster searches, less page-flipping, linked pages, additional resources, etc.), e-books are a huge help to digital and online professionals.
There are now e-books available on almost every aspect of design, from planning your business and managing your time, to designing web applications. This post highlights 10 of the best free e-books for designers, with selections available as PDFs or in HTML.
Whether they’re meant to inspire or educate, let us know if you can recommend any other free e-books aimed at designers in the comments below.
1. Taking Your Talent To The Web
This detailed, intelligent guide is a how-to on transitioning from print to web by Jeffrey Zeldman. It was written for print designers whose clients want websites, print art directors who’d like to move into full–time web and interaction design, homepage creators who are ready to turn pro, and professionals who seek to deepen their web skills and understanding.
Even though it was written in 2001, much of the advice about transitioning from print to the web still holds true, and print designers and art directors are still scrambling to move into web and interaction design.
2. Web Designer’s Success Guide
Web Designer’s Success Guide is the definitive resource for starting your own freelance web design business. Written by Kevin Airgid, a recognized designer who runs an interactive studio, the book offers step-by-step instructions on topics like transitioning from full-time to self-employment, marketing your freelance business, managing projects and pricing yourself appropriately.
3. Designing For The Web
A Practical Guide To Designing For The Web aims to teach core web development techniques based on the principles of graphic design. Written by recognized designer and author Mark Boulton, it is a stand-out amongst web design books with the right balance between practical and inspirational.
It features five sections: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Color and Layout. The focus is on learning graphic design theory, which you can then easily apply to your own designs.
4. Design Your Imagination
Design Your Imagination is a complete and comprehensive guide on website design for those new to the industry, although it may also prove helpful for experienced web designers as well. Almost every aspect of website design is exemplified in this e-book, which aims to help beginners hone their creativity.
This book features more than 28 chapters that deal with a broad array of subjects, from the history of web design through web design principles, planning, and more, all illustrated with practical examples.
5. Time Management For Creative People
Compiled from a series of posts published on Business of Design Online by writer and creativity coach Mark McGuinness, this is an easily digestible guide to help professionals in the creative sector maximize their time and productivity.
Subtitled “Manage the Mundane – Create the Extraordinary,” this book is designed to help you maintain your creative focus while dealing with your other commitments. It includes plenty of practical time management tips tailored specifically for creative types.
6. Getting Real
Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophy of 37signals, a developer of web-based software used by over one million people and businesses in 70 countries. With short, value-packed chapters, this book is an excellent guide for building web-based applications in a smarter, faster and easier way.
7. The Woork Handbook
The Woork Handbook is focused around web design and programming and primarily deals with CSS, HTML, Ajax, web programming, Mootools, Scriptaculous and other topics about web design.
It is an excellent reference book on a range of subjects all drawn from a wealth of excellent articles published on Woork.
8. A Practical Guide To Web Typography
Robert Bringhurst’s book, The Elements of Typographic Style, is on many a designer’s bookshelf, and is considered to be a classic in the industry. The renowned typographer Hermann Zapf calls the book “a must for everybody in the graphic arts, and especially for those just entering the field.”
In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, this book has been structured as a walk through Bringhurst’s working principles, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS. Practicality is ever present with workarounds, alternatives and compromises for less able browsers.
9. Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
This e-book is a practical guide with advice on how to improve your websites, software, hardware, and consumer products, all with an eye on accessibility and avoiding future snags. Written by Shawn Henry, an outreach coordinator who promotes web accessibility for people with disabilities, it’s a straightforward and engaging resource.
The book covers the basics of improving accessibility in design projects with tips for comfortable interaction, having accessibility in a user-centered design process, examples of accessibility in user group profiles, personas, scenarios and much more.
10. Web Style Guide
An in-depth resource that offers information and instruction related to several areas of web development, including interface design, information architecture and usability.
The book explains established design principles and illustrates how they apply to projects whose primary concerns are information design and efficient search and navigation.
Beginner and advanced designers will find this to be one of the most practical guides available.
This series is supported by Ben & Jerry’s Joe, Ben & Jerry’s new line-up of Fair Trade and frozen iced coffee drinks. Learn more about it here.
Adobe Photoshop, the ubiquitous and industry standard graphics software for photographers, designers, digital artists, as well as casual enthusiasts, can be a baffling application to understand the first time you fire it up. Luckily, littered across the vast space of the web are tutorials in all shapes and sizes that will help you get up and running in no time.
In this post, I’ve pieced together 12 excellent Photoshop tutorials geared toward beginners. If you’re a complete novice or a casual user of this software, you’ve stopped by the right place.
Because this is specifically for beginners — and because Photoshop’s robust set of features is near-bottomless — I’ve skipped intermediate and advanced topics such as drawing with the Pen tool and working with 3D effects.
If you have tips for aspiring Photoshoppers, share them in the comments below.