the XL format will be the east building. here's a tif for your photoshop sketch use. i will try to get a night/dusk shot soon.
here is the ai file for this drawing if you want it. drawing is to scale, except for the top portion. assuming some vertical symmetry.
an extra (but important) tidbit i forgot to include in your first reading.
please email me your process blog link so i can add it to the right sidebar.
lecture: what makes a good typeface
be sure your book is on order if you do not already have a copy.
for your review
fontshop's "best of 2016"
a bit of a large list, and obviously biased toward their own font offerings, but a resource nonetheless.
a list of lists from typewolf
this includes lists of alternatives to several overused typefaces and some nice type combination lists.
the best new typefaces of 2016 (so far anyway) from print magazine
a lot of great faces, selected by a range of insightful designers.
first off, what's the difference between a typeface and a font?
now that that's settled, the traditional way for designers to access fonts for professional use is to license them (referred to as a EULA – end user license agreement). licensing means you pay a fee to use the artwork (or intellectual property) of another designer, but creative ownership of the typeface design remains with the original designer or type foundry.
licensing is usually based on a number of CPUs (central processing unit, the primary element of a single computer). designers can purchase a font for one CPU, but a discount is often offered for 3 or 5 or 50 CPUs – the more CPUs, the bigger the discount. font licenses typically have some limitations with what you can and cannot do but there are few restrictions on where or how you use them once you purchase a license.
some things you cannot do:
some things you can do:
the somewhat recent advent of the "web open font format" (woff) in 2009 has allowed designers to specify basically any font that comes with a web license. how fonts work on the web is the subject of another post. basically, most webfont licenses allow for a certain number of pageviews per month. more pageviews = a more expensive license.
designers looking to save maximum dollars can purchase single weights of any given font, which are typically under $50 each, but you are literally buying something like "caslon bold italic" and no other weights. purchasing a family will cost more (sometimes waaay more) but you will have much greater flexibility in terms of what you can use.
all that said about the current (traditional) state of affairs, there are new approaches developing for how designers license fonts. here are two for consideration:
typekit by adobe allows designers to subscribe or purchase fonts at different usage levels and for different size organizations. typekit is actually available to you through kcai as part of your creative cloud subscription. pretty awesome. adobe distributes a range of type foundries, but not all. i have been able to purchase webfont licenses from independent foundries and upload to typekit (i have a personal subscription) so i can use custom fonts on my own websites. this site, and my other site, the new programme, both use the klavika family from process type foundry.
fontstand is a pretty awesome new setup that allows for font rentals for print and web. this is amazing as a money-saving strategy. once you download the app to your desktop, you can try a font for free for an hour (warning: no "r" available!), you can rent it for a month at 10% of the full licensing price, and if you rent a font for a year, you own the license for good. i've used fontstand to try fonts in digital logo sketches and it's great for that purpose.
i'm sure there are other creative approaches out there, but these are two that i know of right now. chime in below in the comments if you find others.
excited to explore this subject i love so much with each of you! let's enjoy getting deep into the process and exploration of what type can do. play, surprise yourself, make unique work!