Pimp my Type

What makes an accessible typeface? And how can we improve typography in regard to web accessibility?

To answer this and other questions, I invited type designer Eleni Beveratou, creative director at Dalton Maag.

We discuss:

🔵 The difference between legibility and readability

🔵 What makes an accessible typeface?

🔵 If Arial and Comic Sans are really superior?

🔵 If we should use designated fonts for dyslexic people in our designs more often?

🔵 How you can mess up the most accessible typeface by using it inaccurately.

🔵 If you should avoid italics or centered text?

🔵 And, if ligatures are helpful or can be problematic?

Typography  for print can be intimidating to many designers, especially when you  focus on digital mostly. This is why I invited specialist Diana Varma to  share her knowledge of what to pay attention to when dealing with type  for print.  You will learn: 🤩 The advantages of print over digital.

🤩 The differences between readability and legibility.
🤯 The right font sizes & smallest type size you can print (blew my mind).
🤩 How to avoid beginners mistakes in prepress.
🤩 How to best print gray text?
🤩 Accessibility is also a topic that comes up quite a lot during this talk.

Talking Points
02:19 Greetings to Diana Varma
06:09 How Diana’s podcast got started
09:13 Advantages of print typography
14:35 Ideas for digital/analog hybrids
17:02 Type choice for long reading formats in print
22:12 On point and pixel sizes
26:00 Basic tips for print beginners
33:04 How to best print gray text
36:59 Knowing the fundamentals to break the rules
39:07 What fascinates Diana about typography?
41:11 Why Diana prefers Comic Sans over Papyrus
43:08 Easter eggs on Diana’s website

In the second part of the two part conversation with Nadine Chahine, type designer and CEO of I Love Typography, we dig into the world of distributing typefaces. I asked Nadine, what motivated her in this highly competitive market to start a marketplace for fonts?

We dig into:

🤔 How the landscape for licensing typefaces was 15 years ago, and how it is today,
🤔 Explain the imbalance in the type design industry with a monopoly on one side, and
🤔 What I Love Typography does differently.

In this first of the two part conversation with Nadine Chahine, type designer and CEO of I Love Typography, we dig into Arabic type design, typography and type design in general. 

I’m joined by wonderful José Scaglione. He is a type designer, lecturer, and co-founder of the high renown foundry TypeTogether, which is behind popular typefaces like Bree or Adelle. They worked with top brands, like Apple and Google, where they also contributed serif typefaces for screen rendering. And this is why I invited José – to discuss with him the predominance of sans-serif in user interfaces and screen design more broadly.

We speak about, why it might be a legacy issue, and that moving out of your comfort zone can be very rewarding. It brings us to legibility, readability, and accessibility. José also shares how he experienced the switch from static fonts to variable fonts as a type designer and foundry. If you struggle with pairing typefaces, this episode also has some tips for you.

Talking points:
00:28 Introduction
02:39 Greeting to José Scaglione
03:36 Is the font in the TypeTogether logo overused?
06:01 Don’t use tabular figures on business cards
07:27 Benefits of learning about typography
09:49 Why is sans-serif dominant in UIs?
13:02 Legibility, regardless of sans or serif
15:34 Why are neo-grotesques so popular?
17:08 Arguments against neutrality & Helvetica
18:57 Portada: A serif typeface for UI design
20:39 Complexity of printing vs screen
24:30 Variable fonts and optical sizing
27:57 Variable fonts and file size
29:37 Do you need the design space of VF?
31:31 Belarius: Slab serifs in UI design
35:40 Accessibility and typography
42:38 Advice for typography newbies
43:20 Tips on pairing typefaces
45:26 Rapid Round of questions
47:11 Goodbye
48:18 Summary