An idiot’s guide to fonts

As NY Times columnist Russell Baker once wrote, “Of all the people expressing their mental vacuity, none has a better excuse for an empty head than the newspaperman: If he pauses to restock his brain, he invites onrushing deadlines to trample him flat. Broadcasting the contents of empty minds is what most of us do most of the time, and nobody more relentlessly than I.” That could well be the motto of PSACOT.

The 50,000-foot view of fonts: Fonts hanging out

Useless knowledge I carry around:

• fonts are either serif (the ones with little lines at the end of each letter, like Times New Roman)
• or sans serif, the modern ones that are all straight lines, and you can’t tell the difference between a 1 and a lower case l. (Which is why this column is in a serif font: 11 point Georgia)
• Kerning is the space between letters, and you can make a line of “type” or a headline fit by reducing it (usually allowing one letter to encroach under the overhang of another)

The whole series: Things No One Will Ever Do Again: Set Type.