Talking Typography 2

Been rather busy last couple of weeks so apologies for my lack of postings. Be back in a few days though with a bumper round up my hot links from January. In the mean time here's a couple of typography links worth checking.

Regime is the first typeface in about a year from Barnbrook's Virusfonts. In 8 weights plus italics it's pricey but a beauty.

If you are feeling the pinch but want to expand you collection then fontsquirrel is worth checking out. Hand picked 100% free fonts, so save yourself hours of trawling on other free font sites for anything half decent and take a look. 

Design Forums

Recently joined up to Design Forums, well designed and thought out website with a good selection of contributors. Definitely worth a look if you have any nagging design related questions or want feedback/advice on your work from other professionals.

Talking Typography

If you're a designer than a good selection of quality typefaces are as essential as your pen and paper, but building a decent collection can be an expensive game. However don't be tempted to download millions of free fonts from da font, 1001 free fonts, or freebies from Computer Arts etc. Whilst a few of the fonts on these sites will do you for display purposes, you will rarely find quality for free and will inevitably end up spending many an hour deleting all the rubbish (I used to be a bit of a type hoarder and recently deleted over 5000 fonts that I had never and would never use, which was a bore to say the least). Below are some links to some quality font foundries and resources that have reasonably priced and some free wares to boost your collection.

You Work For Them has a great selection of interesting typefaces and vectors at a reasonable price.

If you like your type dirty then you'll love Misprinted Type, some great display typefaces and a fair few quality freebies.

Identikal have a good selection of futuristic/ geometric gems.

Hypefortype bring together some great typographers every three months to give you limited edition typefaces from as little as £10.

The Linotype collection is extensive and if your looking for some free font management software you can't get better than FontExplorer 10. 

If you have some money to spend on your font management than Extensis Suitcase fusion looks worth a go (30 day free trial available if you want to test it). Main advantage over Linotype is it's automatic font activation system, which if it works as suggested has me tempted; won't miss searching my 200+ variations of Helvetica for the correct one to activate.

Finally get yourself some nice typography based i-phone and desktop wallpapers at Typenuts. 

SpeakOut Issue 2

SpeakOut Issue 2 is out now and here's a few photos of my layouts. The deadline for articles and contributers for the next issue is 9th January so if you want to be involved get in touch here.

4 Talent Photos

Been meaning to post some photos from the latest 4Talent for a while, below is the great cover illustration from Christain Zebitz and my spreads featuring illustration from Kate Copeland. Not sure what the future of 4Talent Magazine is as the dreaded 'R' word seems to have claimed the jobs of the Networks teams. Real shame as they were a great bunch to work with and the magazine since changing from Ten4 to 4Talent looks and reads better than ever but we shall have to wait and see. My previous spreads for 4Talent can be seen here.

Links from December

Here's a round up of some great links from the last month or so.

Spoongraphics round up of cool designer toys and vinyl figures

Strange| Beautiful inspiration site full of all sorts

From the makers of the Behance Network comes Served, five sites full of design inspiration split into Typography, Photography, Industrial/Product Design, Fashion, Motion Graphics.

3 part photography/ photojournalistic review of the year, with some amazing shots from global events in 2008

Some great illustrative prints from Alberto Cerriteno

Everyone's been bigging up Magdalena Czarnecki's work on several blogs but it is outstanding, I especially like the origami packs for WWF fundraising

Round up of 10 most innovative concert visuals from 2008 on accent feed blog 

'Static and reactive' visuals from Portuguese Art Director Nuno Trafaria

Illustration portfolio from New York based Jinyoung Shin

The Creative Review Blog takes a look at Elliot Young Studio's hand stitched programme for the Royal Variety Perfomance. 

A Bit of Christmas Cheer

Well I noticed I've not been very festive in my blogging, Christmas wind down just hasn't happened yet, but I have had a couple of interesting yule related briefs. Firstly, below is my E card for Equalities charity Brap, it has an alternate Christmas message focussing on work to be done in 2009. Secondly my design for Trent FM's Charity Ale pump, if your drinking in any Nottingham pub this weekend why not get yourself a pint and do your bit for charity at the same time. Finally a desk top advent calendar for the Hit Music Network's clients, printed with the stations logos foiled on.  

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