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Post by Paul Doherty on May 26, 2008 10:59:29 GMT
... employment of 50 typefaces to the page (accompanied by myriad "decorative" borders). Aaarrrggghhh! There are websites like this, invariably in garish colours. This is far from the worst.
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Post by Verbivore on May 26, 2008 11:26:06 GMT
Paul: That was truly an atrocious visual experience; however, not as bad as the average MySpace site.
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Post by Paul Doherty on May 26, 2008 11:40:56 GMT
That's ttue, VV. Nothing was flashing! (She missed a trick there.)
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Post by Pete on May 26, 2008 11:53:07 GMT
A sure sign that someone has recently discovered type via their first computer - especially if they have installed MS Publisher (anathema!) - is the employment of 50 typefaces to the page (accompanied by myriad "decorative" borders). Aaarrrggghhh! Although it's often tempting to turn a particularly atrocious piece of written work into Wingdings and send it back to the originator to start again!
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Post by Tone on May 26, 2008 20:30:10 GMT
>Although it's often tempting to turn a particularly atrocious piece of written work into Wingdings and send it back to the originator to start again!<
You do that too?
Tone
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Post by Verbivore on May 26, 2008 21:54:40 GMT
Although it's often tempting to turn a particularly atrocious piece of written work into Wingdings and send it back to the originator to start again! Ooh - you are awful! But I like you! (Thanks, Mr Emery.) ;D
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Post by Geoff on May 27, 2008 0:33:55 GMT
Verbivore,
A 'fontophile'? I used to collect fonts because I was doing desktop publishing, but it all got to be too much. As I only work in black and white, it's almost impossible to use a large variety of fonts and have my newsletter look presentable.
I recently went to a reunion barbecue for those who were at the factory where I last worked before retirement. The factory was taken over at the time I left and many of the staff took jobs elsewhere. One of those at the barbecue is a keen photographer and he took numerous shots of the activities. He sent me a Powerpoint slide show of his pictures and when I first looked at it I was shocked by the multi-coloured backgrounds he had used behind the pictures. Every one was different. The slideshow has grown on me and I now rather like it, although I have softened some of the backgrounds to enhance the relevant picture. My initial reaction was, as you suggest, that the slideshow had been prepared by someone who had just discovered a great option in Powerpoint and just had to use it. I know if I had made the slideshow, I would not have used colour in the way it had been done by my friend. Mine would have been plain boring in comparison. So, sometimes, more can be good.
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Post by Barry on May 27, 2008 10:02:28 GMT
Geoff,
Sometimes boring is what is needed! The name Robin Williams occasionally pops up here in connection with using a PC/Mac for DTP. She has also written an excellent book called The non-designers design book, which is well worth a read. It's an excellent guide for those who have had no training as graphic designers, yet whose work means that they occasionally have to design posters, leaflets, cards, etc. She outlines a few basic principles, which it's always worth sticking to; one's designs may not be cutting edge, but they won't look like the work of a 5-year-old let loose in the art shop!
The four basic principles of good design (acording to Ms Williams) are:
Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity.
As she says, the handy acronym/mnemonic for these prinicples might be memorable, but it's perhaps a little unfortunate!
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Post by Verbivore on May 27, 2008 11:51:57 GMT
[...] A 'fontophile'? [...] Unabashedly. At last count, my Mac was home to some 11,000+ fonts (probably between 1500 and 2000 typefaces in all their varieties), yet I rarely use more than three different faces in any one document, be it long or short. Some books I set entirely in one face, others with just a different face for headers and footers but all else in one. Just occasionally more may be better, but I generally stick with the Keep It Simple rule. The Robin Williams books to which Barry refers are excellent: heaps of great advice and tips, based on a professional understanding but without being pedantic or dictatorial - and done with excellent humour (and thereby memorable). Her books on various aspects of computing and DTP make the "Dummies" series seem quite plain and boring.
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Post by Sue M-V on May 27, 2008 15:07:17 GMT
an atrocious visual experience Your example was pretty vile, Paul, but, as you say, there are worse. I find red text on a black background impossible to read. Some people haven't a clue. I tend to prefer a sort of Scandinavian sparse elegance nowadays. Vv, perhaps I might ask you about a good phonetic font. I often need to use phonetic symbols, but most of the common fonts seem to be a bit inadequate. Is there one that covers most European languages? I have special trouble trying to find symbols for Swedish! It would be handy to have it in the same font as English symbols, but I realise that might not be possible. One day when I have more time, I'll tell you my sad phonetic story, and make you weep real tears!Sue
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Post by Barry on May 27, 2008 16:52:05 GMT
Sue, You can download phonetic fonts (the full IPA set) from a link on the IPA website: www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/ipafonts.html. Unless you meant full character sets (so you can get Scandinavian, Turkish, etc. diacritics), in which case you have to be choosey - not all fonts have the full character sets, and, again, TNR and Arial tend to be the ones that everyone goes for. TNR and Arial are pretty thorough, and seem to cover all the diacritics that I've ever come across (as well as having Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and Greek characters). They're all there under 'insert symbol: normal text'. Smarter IT-types than I will doubtless be able to tell you how to re-organise your character mapping so that you can type them straight from your keyboard (without having to use codes or key combinations).
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Post by Verbivore on May 27, 2008 22:44:51 GMT
Sue: Barry kindly answered your request while I slept. Thanks, Barry.
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Post by Barry on May 27, 2008 22:59:51 GMT
My pleasure. Just glad I got it right!
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Post by Sue M-V on May 28, 2008 12:44:13 GMT
Yes, thanks; I've been to the IPA site before, but there was a Swedish symbol I couldn't find anywhere. In the end I found something like it somewhere, that I was obliged to use. It looks quite like: ɷ but not exactly. Actually, I find a lot of useful stuff on Lucida Sans Unicode.
Sue
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Post by Paul Doherty on May 28, 2008 13:23:17 GMT
Surely that's a bottom, Sue!!
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