August 24, 2012 – 2:00 PM
We have one new board for you this week that you can cuddle with all weekend. Our Give It A Hug board has fluffy, squishy, and cozy fonts that you can rest your eyes on from Rosetta’s plump script Sutturah to Sudtipos’ marshmallow face Fiance. If you find yourself falling asleep on your laptop often, why not drift off knowing you have a soft, pillowy font like Pinup Regular tucked away on your computer?
Don’t forget about our other boards we have up! We pin our favorites to our Staff Picks 2012 board, so if you’ve missed our selections from previous months, you can check out the various faces we love!
January 19, 2012 – 8:00 AM
January Staff Picks are in. As you may know, our staff here at FontShop regularly brings a few of its lesser-known offerings to the fore for a discussion on what makes great type great. Here are a few of the selections followed by their letters of recommendation.
“I dig the silhouettes it makes with short strings in larger sizes. In longer paragraphs in smaller sizes it acts almost like an optical illusion – jumbled until you make out the first word or two.”
“Fun Script. Reminds me of practicing my letters in school and trying to make them perfect.”
“Just love the g in Capri.”
December 23, 2011 – 7:38 AM
December’s Staff Picks are in. As we at FontShop get ready to spend time with our friends and family for the holidays, we wish you all peace and prosperity, new clothes and fresh eyes. Now on with the picks.
“Good font for development and console. High contrast between numbers and uppercase characters, very distinct upper O, lower o and zero. Good contrast for comma, period, colon and semicolon. And it looks nice.”
“This slanted, aerodynamic, connected-script font reeks of retro spies, martinis, and hidden tape recorders.”
“The thick, comfy curves remind me of staying warm under tons of blankets during the holiday season and makes me crave marshmallows on top of some hot chocolate.”
August 26, 2011 – 4:43 PM
We know you’re busy and the Internet is a crowded place, so we’ll try to give you a little reminder on Fridays of what’s going on out there. Below please find five recent FontShop-related threads that you may have missed.
August Staff Picks
As summer winds down, our SF staff shares their favorite fonts of the month.
Designers and Developers Unite
We were thrilled to host a bevy of both designers and developers at our meetup event this week. Check out the recap here.
Look Again at Canada Type
FontShop recently added Canada Type‘s collection and this week David Sudweeks takes a look at some more of their offerings.
On The FontFeed
Once again, Yves Peters points out two not-to-miss events in the type world: ISType and TYPO London.
Friday Fun
It’s Friday. Who doesn’t want a cocktail with their typography? Watching those empty calories? Here are some Extra Light options for you.
Friday Five Fonts: FF Tundra and FF Sero by FontFont
Summertime and the living may be easy, but we still have type on the brain. This month’s FontShop Staff Picks are here. We’ve highlighted three below so you can hear why our employees picked them.
Michael, First Officer of our SF crew, likes Oxtail from PsyOps Type Foundry. “This is one of my favorites because it’s sophisticated, tasteful, and has a splash of sass,” he explains.
Designer Anna picks FF Polymorph for its international flavor. “FF Polymorph intrigues me with its variety of forms inspired by characters from all over the globe,” she notes.
Our communications manager, Meghan, digs the newly released FF Mister K informal. “I’ve been a big fan of the whole family, but now I can have a font to express my more casual Kafkaesque situations,” she jokes. “In all seriousness though, there are so many unique and beautiful glyphs in this version – it’s a very fun font to explore.”
Summer is almost here and instead of hitting the books and taking exams, our staff studied the gems in the FontShop archives to find this month’s Staff Picks. Here’s a sampling of our June selections:
Aaron’s June pick is Refrigerator Deluxe by Mark Simonson. The beginnings of this design date all the way back to 1988, inspired by vague memories of block-style lettering from Mark’s youth. As time went on, additional styles and alternate glyphs were added, leading to its Deluxe release in 2008. While the basic block-style lettering remains by default, Refrigerator Deluxe can transform into a stylized Art Deco face, both with squared and open shapes, with the flick of an OpenType feature. This User Guide gives a great overview of the available glyphs and features, and how to access them in various applications.
Download Refrigerator PDF Specimen (152 KB) and User Guide (41 KB).
One of my own picks for this month, Xavier Dupré‘s FF Sanuk is deceptively buoyant: its squared veneer gives way to a calligraphic flare. Take the lowercase ‘k’, for example — the foot tails off in a friendly way that you might not expect upon first glance. FF Sanuk has perfect form and character for the web, and was recently released as a Web FontFont.
Download FF Sanuk PDF Specimen (545 KB).
Theresa chose a blast from the past: Blockhead Alphabet, a classic display face from John Hersey and Emigre. One of my earliest lettering memories as a child is the pride and sense of accomplishment I felt when I discovered how to make letters look three-dimensional. (Of course, this meant that every time a class project required a poster or some other visualization, I had an extra task.) Blockhead Alphabet is reminiscent of that childhood discovery, right down to the details of imperfection.
Our April 2011 Staff Picks have arrived! Let these favorite fonts shower your designs with inspiration in the coming month.
Hotel
We here at FontShop San Francisco love the Bay Area, and we love retro, so Jim Parkinson‘s showcard lettering typeface Hotel, inspired by signage still seen in Oakland, CA, is a staff pick shoe-in.
Le Monde Courrier
Download Le Monde Courrier specimen PDF(246 KB).
Jean-François Porchez‘s Le Monde Courrier is but one part of the extensive Le Monde superfamily. Named after the French publication for which it was designed, Le Monde is sometimes serious, sometimes playful, but always maintains a level of sophistication. The Courrier variant straddles the line between typewritten and handwritten, and was designed to be impervious to the imperfections of various printed media.
Also included in April’s Staff Picks is Meran Condensed Black by OurType, just one of the FREE OurType fonts being offered until May 31. Read about our OurType promotion here.
