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In addition to the fine critique others have given you, I have a core list of books that i adore and highly recommend.


Basic tips on working with type I like this book because half of it lays out all the "rules" and then the other half breaks them all - in a good way. Really laid back, easy to read, and good advice.

A good book on just some basics and a little history of typefaces This one's a little more in depth, but still a great book on type.

If you're interested in learning a little history

More history

And also, a wonderful book that reads a little more like a novel than a text book: Just My Type I absolutely love this book. It shows you some history, but at the same time everything is in layman's' terms and very easy to understand. Simon Garfield is a colorful writer and goes through lots of effort to show you all the things about type you might not ever notice.

As far as your type site goes, parts of it are really slick, parts are a little awkward. As others have said, legibility is (for the most part) king when working with type. I've made a couple of critiques on some screen shots for you.

Anyhow, you've got a lot of great advice from everyone here to work with. Just keep practicing and of course looking at examples type and analyzing why it's good or bad. Best of luck!

In addition, I highly recommend this book. Strictly speaking it's about type design, not lettering, but the fundamentals are the same. You can learn a lot about spacing/proportioning/weight shifts, etc from reading that book.

If you're interested in scripts, I also recommend this one. It's not really instructional at all, so don't expect that. What it is is a huge inspiration book of historical script lettering. If you take the time to examine things closely, you can learn a lot by looking at the examples provided in the book.

I'd also do your sketching on grid paper, or if you're fancy, get these notebooks which are great. Using grid paper will help you a lot when it comes to getting stroke weights to be consistent, and quickly setting your key metrics.

Beyond that, it's really a matter of doing it and doing it often. Draw letterforms as often as you can until things like proportioning, spacing, natural stroke weight variation, etc, become second nature for you.

Something else that helped me (especially in the beginning), is to start off by trying to design type instead of doing lettering. Lettering can often be quirky and have "intentional mistakes" that will work case-by-case, but at the beginning you should be focused entirely on learning how to properly draw letterforms. Once you get the hang of that, then you can start experimenting with them.

Try to letter something in a typeface that exists (something with good stroke weight variation, even if it's only a few letters) from memory as an exercise. Sure, you'll never get it perfect and in the beginning it will probably look just wrong, but you'll have something to compare your exercise to to see if you've done it right. It's a good way to get a grasp on proportioning, spacing, and stroke weight variations.

Zero experience?

If you have no experience in typography or design, I recommend learning typography as a starting point. Letterpress printing is a fascinating pursuit on its own, but you'll get much more out of it if you prepare yourself with a strong foundation in typography.

The cool thing about learning typography as it's more often practiced today is there's plenty of carryover from the metal type of a letterpress. Terms like leading and uppercase have meanings that transcend the physical medium, but relate to the history of applying typography with metal type. That's the best way to look at letterpress printing — it's a specific form of applied typography.

To learn how to use a letterpress without learning general typography is to learn penmanship without knowing a written language.

To get started, I recommend reading an introductory typography book:

http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Type-5th-Edition-Typography/dp/0823014134/

Practice a bit, then make your way through Bringhurst:


http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Typographic-Style-Anniversary/dp/0881792128/

Much of Bringhurst will be review, but you won't fully appreciate it without already having a basic comprehensive understanding.

Any learning you can do before touching a machine should be done. I recommend this path because working with a letterpress is time consuming and potentially expensive. If you jump straight into producing letterpress work without a typographic background, it will be of poor quality. You can learn the basics much faster digitally, while also gaining the eye that will help you when you move into letterpress printing.

I'm a type designer, so feel to ask me questions.

To keep the look and feel consistent across the entire font largely depends on understanding the fundamentals of visual communication design, typography, and the relationship between characters.

The process starts with a design with specific parameters, a "skeleton" of a typeface. You need to decide if it's going to be a serif, sans serif, slab serif, display, etc., then move on to the qualities of the typeface. What characters would it have (cold, friendly, fat, loud, etc.)? What purpose would it serve?

Once the design is settled, the work in creating a typeface from scratch involves lots and lots of tweaking to maintain a relationship with each glyph. Drawing glyphs is a lot of work, and yes, a lot of the work is done by eye. Each character could be "generated" and be mathematically accurate as a foundation, but it will be largely optically incorrect and loses an important quality, a human touch.

Extrapolation with fonts can be done with Superpolator and interpolation with RoboFab, but it doesn't make the typeface design better if it is not drawn correctly in the first place.

The best fonts out there, upon close inspection of their glyphs, show that their forms are derived from the written hand. See Gerrit Noordzij's The Stroke for more.

Karen Cheng's Designing Type is another good read. Another book that's coming soon is Fred Smeijers' Counterpunch 2nd Ed..

As glasspenguin mentioned, Typophile.com is a great message forum on type design. You will find a lot of information there.

Typography for Lawyers fits the bill. It is written for non-designers using standard office software, and teaches you how to set type well using the tools you have. (The site used to have the full content, but it looks like he's published it as a book and is now using the site to sell the book.)

I'm also a huge fan of Speikerman's book Stop Stealing Sheep. It is a great introduction to the ideas behind good typography, an easy read, and very well suited for the beginner.

Good luck!

Designing Type by Karen Cheng is worth every penny. She goes into amazing detail, which you'll appreciate if you keep designing type. But, for starting out, you can at least get a good idea out of the gate for some of the details that go into type design.

Glyphs is a good, beginner friendly application. You can copy letters from Illustrator to it without much hassle (although I recommend drawing them IN Glyphs if you can). The Mini version is fine for getting up to speed. When you start digging into a larger character set, you can upgrade.

Outside of that, study type! A great first project is nothing more than recreating letters that you like the look of. Take a logo and build out the letters it doesn't use. Find an old wood or metal typeface and convert it. You can learn a lot from seeing how letters were created in the past and it can inform you on how to approach doing your own unique design.

Books books books!

Some essential reading:

• Thinking with Type - very basic, and a good place to start; designed like a workbook
  
• The Elements of Typographic Style - pure reference
  
• The Vignelli Canon (PDF, also available as paperback)
  
  You have probably heard of the documentary Helvetica. This movie inspired me to become a type nerd. The follow-up movie, Objectified, is also very good and focuses on consumer design.
  
  Web sites / blogs:
  
  
• Typophile - active forum and community
  
• I Love Typography - great blog
  
• The Ampersand - pictures of ampersands; more interesting than it sounds
  
• Brand New - logo design, not typography specifically
  
  If you are at college or have a college campus nearby, check our their art library. There are bound to be awesome resources there. Explore graphic design periodicals and get lost in giant bound books of type samples.
  
  Edit: Disclaimer: I'm merely a design hobbyist.

Ha, I would also assume that getting people to read it is unquestionably good in most ways :) But…I also wonder about if, in academia, there's a sense that a cover that's too good might not be serious enough, that it might be seen as sociologists see Malcolm Gladwell books or economists see Freakonomics.

Anyways: I think these sorts of historical stories, where you are looking at a modern-day state of affairs and retracing the steps and powers that brought it into being, are super interesting for a general audience. Elaine Pagels' Revelations and Russell Shorto's Amsterdam are two that come to mind, although that's a very broad grouping.

I bring those up because looking at the cover, it feels very much like "somebody had a PhD thesis and they turned it into a more readable book." I don't know if that's the case with this or not, but it sort of looks like the sort of book you'd find in a university's library, where the professor who works there keeps 1 copy at the library and makes his students buy the remaining stock every year.

I might pick it up if I'm someone with an academic interest in history, but not someone like me who enjoys history as a general interest reader. And based on what little I can tell from the cover, it's a book that could potentially have a broad appeal with the right marketing — it's a topic that ties in with so many things in the headlines.

So, in terms of what to do: I might do some research at the local bookstore on what's hot in book covers at the moment. With a b&w photo + one color, this can be very understated and elegant when done with expensive materials and processes, but as a flat image, it says "academic work." With Elaine Pagels' Revelations, rather than having a block of color over the image, it's just white type over the image. This tends to feel stronger to me. With Shorto's Amsterdam, you have more of a collaged, geometric approach that you would probably want to have a graphic designer do if you were going to take a crack at that. I would also see how the image looks at like 100 and even 50 px across, since this is going to live primarily as an ebook. Again, context.

EDIT: the main thing I didn't express outright was that I think fiddling with the type but leaving the general layout as is will not make a big difference. There needs to be some intrigue, some emotional connection, that makes the reader click on your book amidst the search results for "cold war history" or whatever they typed into amazon. Adjusting the typography is not going to accomplish that.

• The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
  
  
• Stop Stealing Sheep & find our how type works 3rd Edition by Erik Spiekermann, this one is a super easy read but a great book.
  
  
• Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton, I have the 2nd Edition
  
  
• Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara
  
  
• Typographic Design: Form and Communication by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Philip Meggs. I have the 4th edition but I think most are okay. This is a good general typography textbook.
  
  
• Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston
  
  I can't give suggestions on hand-lettering books yet as the few I have read weren't good...so I'm trying to find better ones. But check out Louise Fili and Jessica Hische for inspiration and of course Paula Scher and Sagmeister.
  
  There are many other books so I welcome others to chime in and add their suggestions.

Honestly, a good history of design book would be the route I would recommend going first.
This is one of my favorites. http://www.amazon.com/Meggs-History-Graphic-Design-Philip/dp/0471699020/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396721586&sr=1-9&keywords=history+of+design

After that I'd recommend learning your terminology as far as the different parts of letters goes. Once you have that down, moving to learning about points & picas will help a lot, especially if you want to get into designing grids and/or fonts. A lot of designers I know still don't understand those, and it gives me the edge every time.



One of my favorite books to keep around as far as reference goes is "Forms, Folds, and Sizes".
http://www.amazon.com/Forms-Folds-Sizes-Details-Designers/dp/1592530540/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396721691&sr=1-1&keywords=forms+folds+and+sizes

If you're looking for something he will learn from, not just a gimmicky "lolol I hate papyrus" gift, I'd strongly recommend The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst.

This book was recommended to me by one of my lecturers while I was in university. I didn't purchase it until I had graduated (mainly because I was broke at the time), but I really wish I had purchased it earlier. It is the pinnacle book for learning about typographic history and best practices. I cannot stress enough how much of an amazing resource this is for a young typographer. Even if you don't end up getting it for him, just let him know that it exists so he can pick it up at some point.

The characters still need a lot of work. Overall, you're relying too much on perfect semicircles and monoweight strokes. It's a good starting point for a geometric sans, but now you need to go back and do a ton of optical tweaking to make things look right. I recommend picking up Karen Cheng's Book. I would also compare your characters to the ones in other geometric sans like Futura and Avenir. Take note of details like the way the shoulder of the 'n' and 'h' is handled and the thinning of strokes at joints.

Anyways, it's a cool start. Keep at it

Just because something is regularly used does not mean that it is good or appropriate. Besides, free fonts are seldom used in newspapers, television, movies, and music videos (and almost never used by reputable organizations). Free fonts are almost always terrible because of: kerning, x-height, letterforms, glyphs, ligatures, leading, etc. A good typeface has a family, not just a single font. Here's a primer, but I would recommend this book and this one.

My critique remains the same as my initial comments: far too many typefaces, and avoid using free fonts. Buy them if you can, steal them if you have to, or be much more diligent in finding well designed free typefaces. Start here.

Draw alot. And not just letters. I like figure drawing, and the movements and curves I learn from figure drawing inform the shapes I make with letters. So the more you draw, the more refined your line work becomes. and the more you draw outside of letterforms, the more versatility you can have when you do draw letterforms.

Also, saturate yourself in what you like. Find out who all is doing what you like, and who is doing it the best. Then break down how they are doing it, and apply that knowledge in your own practice. Designing Type by Karen Cheng is a great reference book on letterforms.

The Elements of Typographic Style, By Robert Bringhurst is an excellent resource for setting type.

EDIT: Of course, I would recommend purchasing a copy if this sort of thing interests you. It's a great book to keep near your desk for quick reference.

I don't have a lot of books on the subject, but my first one as a student was http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-Designers-Critical-Students/dp/1568984480, I found it really helpful and actually really entertaining to read

Get your hands on books, especially this one can help a lot.

Start from scratch, expect garbage. If it's not garbage, then awesome, but it will be. Keep going, do more. Try to start with typefaces which aren't artificially created by your mind (such as Helvetica), but which come out of the tool youre using. Get a wide marker and just write. Start with just uppercase or lowercase letters, don't get overwhelmed. Hang out in r/typedesign and stay humble, ask experienced type designers for help. Good luck.

edit: oh and don't use Illustrator etc. if you can. Programs made for fonts (Glyphs, Fontlab, Fontforge) may feel rigid and obsolete (except for Glyphs maybe), but they offer much more control over anchor points and their handles, and they take only 30 minutes to learn the basics.

I recommend the following books:

Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton.
This book is the essential introduction to typography and probably should be the first type book you get.

Lettering and Type by Bruce Willen and Nolan Strals.
This book provides an introduction to different types of lettering and typographic work, as well as a brief introduction to designing your own typeface.

Designing Type by Karen Cheng.
This book covers the intricacies and design considerations of each letter one by one. It's a great reference when designing your own type, or even if you just want a more in-depth look at letterforms.

Great! Thanks for the quick reply. I also found this book > https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695

Awesome, I just both this two:
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-Bringhurst/dp/0881792055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292256276&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-Designers-Critical-Students/dp/1568984480

cant wait until they here! Thanx a lot for the nice suggestions.

for inspiration theres this: http://www.amazon.com/Sign-Painters-Faythe-Levine/dp/1616890835
also if you get the one with the appendix in the back it has a good few sheets of learning terminology, styles, how to etc

Where is this information about Hobo from? Sounds like a wealth of information about the history of fonts.

edit

Never mind! I found it. Mac McGrew's American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century.

Thinking with Type is a great book, but I'm more of a Bringhurst fan - The Elements of Typographic Style is my recommendation.

Designing Type is a good start. Also Briem has good notes.

If you haven't, you might be interested to read The Stroke. Despite some limitations, it has some very interesting thoughts exploring the relationship of calligraphy and type design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_(page_layout)

A grid is setting up a layout on the page that creates hierarchy and order to the content in a consistent way.

Good books:


http://www.amazon.com/Making-Breaking-Grid-Graphic-Workshop/dp/1592531253/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300584269&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300584269&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestaltung/dp/3721201450/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300584269&sr=1-6

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3721201450 is (among) the best.

You have the rhythm in, that’s for sure. What you should learn is a little bit more on how to use fonts, how to pair fonts, and quite a bit about grids. There is no reason to use 10 different typefaces, especially when so many of them are so similar.

I recommend you read the book Thinking with Type, as this book gives great insight into all these topics.

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-Bringhurst/dp/0881792055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292256276&sr=8-1

Easily one of the most engaging and educating books about type.

I actually got into typography because of Leslie Cabarga's Logo, Font, and Lettering Bible.

I think it's a typography goldmine regardless of whether you're completely new to this or already have some experience. And it's really entertaining, too.
If you don't have a problem pirating it, you can PM me for a torrent link.

This one is fun.

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-Designers-Critical-Students/dp/1568984480

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Right-Type-Donts-Typography/dp/1856694747

This was my book for my advertising design and graphics class. My favorite I've read so far. Anyone else ever read this?

Getting It Right With Type is a good book to have on-hand.

The Helvetica documentary? It is quite interesting even if he does not like the actual font. Link if you want to buy it: http://www.amazon.com/Helvetica-David-Carson/dp/B000VWEFP8

In that case get yourself a copy of [Designing Type] (http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Type-Karen-Cheng/dp/0300111509/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453594661&sr=1-1&keywords=designing+type+karen+cheng), a pen and a piece of paper.

And then go for Glyphs Mini. The book will easily get you up to speed with the basics, and Glyphs Mini really is very accessible.

For knowledge, I highly recommend typographic design form and communication.

For skill you really just have to get your hands dirty and play around with things, find out what works for your style.

Sign Painters There's also a documentary as well.

Sorry to say this is very common. I met Erik Spiekermann a few years back, his book is a worthwhile read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stop-Stealing-Sheep-Find-Works/dp/0201703394

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works

is an entertaining light read. I would recommend it as a starter before going to Bringhurst

https://smile.amazon.com/American-Typefaces-Twentieth-Century-Revised/dp/0938768395/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807124&sr=8-1&keywords=american+metal+typefaces

https://smile.amazon.com/Encyclopaedia-Typefaces-Berry-Johnson-Jaspert/dp/1844036707/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807144&sr=8-1&keywords=encyclopedia+of+typefaces

https://smile.amazon.com/Modern-Encyclopedia-Typefaces-1960-90-Lawrence/dp/0442308094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807162&sr=8-1&keywords=modern+encyclopedia+of+typefaces

https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=an+a%E2%80%93z+of+type+designers

https://smile.amazon.com/American-Design-Designers-David-Consuegra/dp/1581153201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807215&sr=8-1&keywords=american+type+design+and+designers

https://smile.amazon.com/American-Wood-Type-1828-1900-Evolution/dp/0978588177/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807240&sr=8-1&keywords=american+wood+type

https://smile.amazon.com/French-Renaissance-Printing-Types-Conspectus/dp/1584562714/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807262&sr=8-1&keywords=french+renaissance+printing+types

https://smile.amazon.com/Nineteenth-Century-American-Designers-Engravers-Type/dp/1584562617/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485807283&sr=8-1&keywords=nineteenth+century+american+designers+and+engravers+of+type

Meggs?

Not sure about websites, but these books are absolute must-reads for learning typography.

Thinking With Type

Designing With Type

The Elements of Typographic Style

Herding, Stealing, Shagging, whatever....

>"Any man who would letterspace blackletter would shag sheep."

http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Stealing-Sheep-Works-Edition/dp/0201703394

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Goudy

> You’re using too many points.

It turns out I was using too few, actually. I drew this font in illustrator by using as little points as possible (I'm lazy), but Fontcreator couldn't deal with some of the long handles, which fucked some of the curves up.
I know what a 'good' font is supposed to look like, but as I've pointed out before: that's not what I'm going for.

(As for that Bible, I had a look at it on amazon, but the front and back cover have some of the worst typography I've ever seen, so I think I'll pass.)