Flat Pickles

Typography Stuff

I’ve been unusually enthusiastic about typography lately, and I keep coming across resources worth saving. To that end, I’ll start collecting those resources here, and I’ll bump this note up to the top of my Notes page if/when I update it.

Favorite foundries:

  • OH no Type Company. The first fonts I ever bought were their collabs with Vulfpeck (used here). Check out Ohno Radio too, if you’re into this stuff.
  • Nuform Type. Their gorgeous website is enough to make me fall in love, and the fonts are pretty rad too.
  • David Jonathan Ross. These fonts make me want to publish a zine. His “Font of the Month” club looks great too.

Typefaces of note:

  • Inter. Perhaps the most readable typeface I’ve ever read. Free, open source, and fully featured with extra sauce.
  • ET Book. Just the right balance of academic & vibey, like the rest of Edward Tufte’s work. Fits well within Tufte CSS.
  • Pragmata Pro. Some of the smartest coders I know use this one (hi Dan).

Font libraries:

  • Fontshare. 100+ beautiful pro-grade typefaces, all free to use. Their “pairs” of display & text types are great too.
  • Variable Fonts. An index of variable fonts (some free, some paid) with inline variable sliders. And you know how much I love sliders!
  • Open Foundry. Lots of beautiful and/or utilitarian fonts, all open source, and presented VERY large so you know they’re legit.
  • Google Fonts. It’s been 28 years since anyone navigated the Google Fonts UX without losing hair, but it’s still a great resource.

Developer resources:

  • Font Squirrel Webfont Generator. Indispensible tool for optimizing and normalizing type for the web. Fix vertical metrics, convert file types, etc.
  • opentype.js. Access letterform vector data, modify shapes, and render text in creative ways.
  • Modern Font Stacks. System fonts for every modern OS, organized by typeface classification.

Reading materials:

  • Font vs typeface. These terms mean different things, but are often interchangeable. I’ve probably messed it up somewhere in here though.
  • A rant on web font licenses. I love it that type designers get paid, but navigating font licensing can be hairy for devs. Worth considering.