Exploring Typography History, Design, and Web Development

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Delve into the history of typography, the art of sign painting, and the fusion of casual sign painting with fonts like Comic Sans and Papyrus. Learn about dyslexic-friendly fonts, the collaboration with dyslexic artists for new fonts, and practical tips for improving typography in web design, including using REMs as a base unit and fluid type scales with CSS clamp technique.

Scott and CJ are joined by Stephen Nixon of ArrowType to delve into the world of fonts and type for developers. They explore the intricacies of font creation, the utility of variable fonts, and offer tips for making visually appealing typography on the web.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
00:57 Who is Stephen Nixon?
- Process Type Foundry.
- Mark Simonson Proxima Nova.
05:42 What is a type foundry exactly?
- ArrowType.
09:09 Font / type making.
- 09:15 How do you make a font?
  - RoboFont.
  - Glyphs.
- 11:58 Fonts vs typefaces.
- 13:02 How many fonts have you made?
- 14:17 What are variable fonts and how can web developers utilize them?
- 19:22 Animating fonts.
  - Variable Fonts.
  - Recursive.
- 20:28 Do you code your demo sites yourself?
- 21:50 Are variable fonts more complex to design (and develop).
- 27:03 Hand painted fonts.
- 29:39 Creating a monospace font.
- 32:19 Creating fonts with dyslexia accessibility in mind.
37:58 Typography for the web.
- 38:29 What are some 80/20 rules developers can employ to make more visually appealing typography?
- 40:58 Type scale calculations.
  - Scott’s Fluid Type Calculator.
- 45:42 What are your biggest web type pet peeves.
- 48:46 Do you have any favorite type tools?
  - Wakamifondue.
  - Fixing Variable Font Inheritance.
50:34 Supper Club Questions.
- 50:44 How do you feel about ligatures in coding fonts?
  - Ligatures In Programming Fonts Hell No.
- 55:11 What font do you use?
  - Name Sans v05.
  - Name-Mono.
- 56:43 What is your favorite font of all time?
  - Typotheque.
  - Soehne.
  - Grillitype Typefaces.
  - Phnotype.
58:49 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs.