Daily Dose of DTP: 7. It's Just Fonts, Right?

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Daily Dose of DTP 7. It's Just Fonts, Right? From Jacci Howard Bear, your Guide to Desktop Publishing Today's daily dose is one little word that carries a big punch. When you click on a link that says 'Typography' what do you expect to find? Will it be lessons on how to use italics or how to mix and match fonts? Could it be tutorials on how to make your own typefaces? Or, will it be articles on Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press? It could be any or all of those. While the dictionary definition of typography may be as simple as 'The composition of printed material from moveable type' in practice it covers much, much more. In some ways, typography is a field separate and apart from desktop publishing. But the use of type is integral to page layout so it's definitely a topic that you'll need to be familiar with if you'll be doing desktop publishing. A little later in this class I'll be giving you daily doses of information about those parts of typography that are especially applicable to desktop publishing. Class Notes: This is not simply a word-a-day course. The lessons follow a specific order in roughly the following groupings: General concepts > Things you need > Font specifics > Image specifics > Prepress & Printing > Rules & Tutorials (bold indicates the stage in which this lesson falls) Today's Definition Typography Yes, it's about the fonts... Today's Trivia A Font of Information Back in the days when all typefaces were made of little pieces of metal that had to be arranged one character at a time in a big tray for use in a printing press, the word font referred to one specific style of type in a single size. 12-point Times New Roman and 72-point Times New Roman were two completely different fonts, one small, one large. Today, a font is a computer file stored on our computers. If you have the font Times New Roman you can make it most any size from a tiny 4-points to a huge 400-points. Font and typeface once meant two different things. Now they are interchangeable terms. This email is written by: Jacci Howard Bear Desktop Publishing Guide Email Me | My Blog | My Forum   Missing a lesson? Click here. About U. is our collection of free online courses designed to help you learn a new skill, solve a problem, get something done, or just learn more about your world. Sign up now, and we will email you lessons on a daily or weekly basis. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the About.com 'Daily Dose of DTP' email. If you wish to unsubscribe, please click here. About respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 249 West 17th Street New York, NY, 10011 © 2010 About.com   Advertisement