#the unicode letters are way more subtle this time

[itsbenedict]

From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 37 | 26

It strikes you that a place like t𝚑is is ideal for A PRO'S PORCINE GOATEE CORPORATE ESPIONAGE. If you'r𝖾 in a backup version of realit𝘺 with no people in it, all the workstations currently being used in reality should be 𝚞𝚗locked in this RAID disk. Which means... if you can figure out how to interpret some sort of medieval torture rack-type t𝗁ingy as a computer, you c𝚘uld read some of the Design Center's secret fi𝚕es! And you've got those DEVELOPER TOOLS, which might just be what ÿou neeđ for the job.

You jab α spiky box with a needle, and by magicks arcane, you gain access to the computer's filesystem. ሃou find the following files immediately, alongside a "com" that you'ʀe not sure wh𝚊t to 𝘥o with:

OUR_SPORTBALL_RECIPIENT, probably about wh𝚒ch sports te𝒂m the Ninelite Design Ce𝗇ter intends to sign a sponsorship deal with for the upcoming BARED ORDEAL.

QATAR:_A_FORENSIC_PERIOD, probably abou𝔱... uh, some sort of law-enforcement trend that ɦad to do with making a lot of use of forensics. In some country you've never heard of before.

REDISCOVER_ANXIETY_RUNE, probably aboutａplan to find and ωeaponize the long-lost Anxiety Rune that can psychologically destroy whoever reads it.

SPAM_CREATOR_GUESSERS, probably about the office's attempts to guess who exactly has been creating all the spam that's been filling up their inboxes. They'll nail the jer𝗄, no doubt.

Unfortunately, as soon as you connect to this filesyste𝚖, another alarm starts blaring! You've g𝚘t to get out of here before you're cornered by security!

Unless you really wan𝚝 to push your luck, you've only got time to decrypt and read one of these four files. Wḧat'll it be?

Continued | 37 | 25

[wahtdahel-blog]

Freelance Writer and Designer Team Up to Get Natural Hair Represented on the Emoji Keyboard, Garner Over 28,000 Signatures on Petition

A petition launched by a New York-based freelance writer is picking up steam as it calls for Black natural hair to be represented in emoji form.

Rhianna Jones teamed with designer Kerrilyn Gibson last month to make emoji featuring the unique stylings of afro-textured hair come to virtual life. In a letter attached to her Change.org petition, Jones explained her plans to send a letter to the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit that oversees the creation and development of emoji, by the end of March.

Rhianna Jones (left) and Kerrilyn Gibson (right) hope to get their “afromoji” approved by the Unicode Consortium. (Photos: @xx_rhiannajones/@kerrilynnoelle/Instagram)

“Emoji are a universal language of self expression,” the letter reads in part. “Afro-haired users like myself, however, don’t have any emoji that reflect our hair or cultural identities. Everybody should be able to see themselves in the digital conversations they’re having. Our hair and our stories matter.

“I am submitting an official Afro Hair Emoji proposal to Unicode March 31, 2019, for potential acceptance in their 2020 selection,” it continues. “Currently, emoji hair is straight and Eurocentric, and fails to represent the diversity of Black, Afro-Latinx and other Diasporic communities with kinkier, spherical, coily hair. Afro hair has been long neglected in universal beauty norms, which you see globally from actors and newscasters told their natural hair is unprofessional to children being sent home from school for natural hairstyles. We should feel celebratory of the cultural and historical richness of our roots, onscreen and IRL!”

The letter notes that the proposed emoji will include a range of skin tones, ages and genders.

Even though the deadline has passed for Jones sending off the petition, signatures have still been coming in. By April 2 the afro emoji appeal had been signed more than 28,000 times.

“It’s a pretty lengthy process, so I hope that they’re listening and I hope that they know that we all really want this,” Jones told National Public Radio.

And the process isn’t easy to get through. The Unicode Consortium has a host of requirements for proposals, which includes not only the name and the image of the emoji but also licensing and information on how often it will be used. After a proposal is submitted by either March 31 for new emoji or September 1 for modified existing emoji (which is required for the emoji to be considered for the following year) an initial review of a new proposal can take up to 30 days.

Currently, there are more than 2,800 emoji, and 59 more are slated for inclusion in the Unicode Standard, a coding system designed to support the consistent representation of characters across the world’s writing systems. They include interracial couples, a wheelchair, garlic, and a yawning emoji.

Although Apple announced in 2018 that the new emoji in Unicode 11.0 include ones that represent people with curly hair, there are none that reflect the way hair naturally grows out of Black people’s heads.

“I think an Afro should be included because there’s an entire community of people — black, Afro-LatinX diasporic … the Jewfro — there’s just a lot of people that have hair that grows upward and spherically and defies gravity,” Jones said to NPR. She was inspired to create the emoji after celebrating Black History Month when she got fed up writing “insert Afro emoji here” in emails.

“There’s been a big dearth and lack of representation of natural hair and Afro hair in the media,” she continued. “I think the lack of Afro hair in our keyboards is a subtle but constant reminder of that.”

#AfroHairMatters

[pendulum-sonata]

Demystifying the En Cards

(Aka. The Natural Energy Cards)

Well, it’s been quite a while since I last made an analysis post right? Well, now it’s time for more ridiculously specific meta post of mine, this time the topic will not be about a character, narrative or even a theme of the series, but about the En Cards, note that while I think I have a solid ground for these interpretation, at the end of the day remain just that: interpretations and I’m in no way claiming that this is unquestionable canon okay?

Some people hate them, some people don’t really mind them but consider them an asspull or copout to defeat Zarc, other love them either for the aesthetic or the concept behind them, or just because they think they’re awesome.

But just what could possibly be the En Cards? Why from all things did Leo, a renowned scientist, choose these “forces of nature” o fight Zarc of, it seems pretty far off, and it add to many us questioning Leo’s “scientific” MO (well, for the YGO version of it: P) would go all “Mother Nature save us’ thing doesn’t it? In fact, I think I myself complained about this being a subtle “science is bad” message from this.

The only thing we seemingly had was that these cards were based of the concept of Kachou Fuugetsu (花鳥風月) literally: “Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon” or “The Four Beauties of Nature”

So, imagine my surprise when I came up with a possible explanation behind the choosing of that theme.

The Mathematician’s Answer

Don’t worry I’m not gonna give you a math class here, this is just at best a simple theory thing, because maybe some of you never got a close look at the card’s design, particularly the symbol in it.

I don’t blame you, I myself didn’t pay attention, nor did I realize it until I went into the wiki page

En Flowers

The card is pink and has flowery designs in them, no surprise there, but what’s that pretty and shiny symbol that admittedly looks like a hairpin?

It’s π, the P letter in the Greek alphabet, which some of us may remember from of algebra classes as the number 3.1416…. etc etc.

En Moon

Blue card, it has designs that would remind you off the moon in some archaic architecture and another pretty hairpin-like symbol on it.

It’s the Σ symbol, or Sigma, the S letter on the Greek alphabet.

Some of you might remember it as yet another algebraic symbol representing a sum.

En Winds

This one looks pretty too right, besides I like the hue of green it uses and the blowing wind figures the background of the card, and which Greek letter it has this time?

⊓ = Square Cap

None, at least not in the actual sense of it, because this is a square cap, in Unicode the capita Pi letter and the square cap are interchangeable, but for the purpose of math this symbol represents a disjoint intersection.

What is that? I didn’t know until I googled it and a found out that it’s used for sets (in the math sense) of factors that have nothing in common.

En Birds

A pretty card with a background of a bird formed out of tiles, and blue colored, for the purple themed xyz summon… go figure *shrugs*

The pretty hairpin this time goes back to yet another Greek letter:

Epsilon = ε, the E letter.

Now this is a little complicated because this symbol has a lot of uses in the match world, and other sciences too, but I believe this time it represents the Unit Step Function.

Why? Because the value of it is zero.

So going by these symbols and the summon order we have:

En Flowers --> En Birds --> En Winds --> En Moon

Pi (Infinite series of numbers) --> Unit Step Function ( Set value of zero) --> Disjoint intersection (Factors with no common ground) --> Summation of all these factors.

See? Math is fun! (Okay, don’t kill me ^^’)

The True “Powers of Nature”

There’s another thing that I found super interesting about the significance behind these symbols for the cards, and it all came because I may or may not have obsessed over the fact that from the four cards, En Winds didn’t fit with the Greek letter aesthetic of the other cards, maths aside.

Then I started to dig in more about it and I found:

Pi Flowers

Who of you has ever heard of the Fibonacci sequence? In broad strokes it refers to the infinite series of numbers which come up often enough in nature, and in particular case, in the flowers and the number of petals it has, one of these sequences is called the “Pi Spiral” and the flower is literally called a Pi Flower.

Epsilon Calculus

We know that En Birds is supposed to represent wild life right? Well the epsilon value comes up often enough in biology, especially in certain types of cell complexes, it’s also used in some algebraic equation to predict the route of bird flocks, its reproduction rate etc.

It’s also used in biology to name an antitoxin found in mammals and a retrovirus which, you guessed affect among other animals, birds

Winding Numbers

The square cap besides being used in algebra, it also used in winding numbers, which are basically numbers that represent the wind paths the curve line and the number of times it travels counterclockwise.

Synodic Arc

In ancient East Asian mathematics text, people have found the lunar system, particularly the algorithm of the Synodic arc represented by a lowercase sigma, a step function of the zodiacal position of the Moon.

In conclusion; we have the En Flowers, representing the earth and the Pi symbol that may indicate the Fibonacci sequence of a Pi Spiral on the flowers; the En Birds representing wildlife and the epsilon calculus used for biology; En Winds representing “dynamic life” with a concept that uses wind paths curve lines and how the travel and finally we have En Moon the “power of cosmos” in the synodic arc, a concept related to the lunar system used to calculate zodiac positions of the stars.

So... What does this mean?

If you ask me, I’m not entirely sure, I mean personally I’m more willing to think the math analysis has more solid ground because other posts have already found match concepts within the series, if this was another series I might think this was an incredibly fortunate coincidence.

But Arc V has proven over and over, to have been a througoly though up series, with lots of hidden meanins and symbolism all around, we well hidden that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not this, the En cards having another deeper significance.

[chrissyrholmes]

Top 10 Google Web Fonts For Bold Header Text

Since webfont support is basically universal there’s no good reason to stick to the defaults. Google Webfonts is the largest source of free fonts with hundreds of typefaces to pick from.

Since page headers are the strongest elements they usually work best with custom fonts. However it can be tough whittling down the best choices, and that’s exactly why I wrote this post.

All the Fonts You Could Ask For

DOWNLOAD NOW

1. Montserrat

The first in my collection is Montserrat. This font can work for pretty much anything but I think it works incredibly well as header text.

I’ve used this for navigation text with all caps, customized letter spacing, along with many different font styles from thin to super thick. Montserrat fits the bill perfectly across the board and it’s one of the more universal fonts blending into anything from a tech blog to a funeral parlor website.

The font only weighs about 500 bytes using the default style so it’s incredibly light. And with so many different styles you can get a lot of different looks from this one family.

If you’re looking for a unique heading font try Montserrat. It probably won’t work for everyone but it’s a safe starting font that many designers love.

2. Merriweather

A much thicker serif alternative is Merriweather which I also like as a body font. This versatile typeface really looks great anywhere on your site and it’ll bring plenty of attention to your headers.

If you try Merriweather for a larger page heading I suggest using the bold or bold italic style. They are surprisingly clean but they probably need some letter spacing adjustments. Either way the style and darkness of the letters are super easy to follow.

When pairing this font I usually do a sans-serif body typeface. The contrasting styles create a natural divide between headers & body copy. Plus most people find sans-serif easier to read on average for body content.

But I see a lot of sites with serif headers and they all look great. Merriweather is a nice starting point for serif, but if you don’t like it you’ll find tons of alternatives in this post.

3. Josefin Sans

Modern and classy best describes Josefin Sans. It feels like a font straight from a 1950s jazz lounge, or maybe something you’d see on the front page of The New Yorker.

It does have a distinct curvy style and the thin letters save a lot of horizontal space. You can toy with all-caps or different letter spacings to create many unique styles all from this one font family.

Some sites just look better with thin heading fonts. If you’re looking for one to try I absolutely recommend Josefin Sans with its unique letter designs and its many bold/italic styles.

4. Arvo

One other serif font I really like is Arvo. This font has a lot of character which you’ll notice right away in the bolder styles.

I really feel like Arvo works best on blogs and digital magazines because the font grabs so much focus. It’s one of the strongest fonts in this list and the serif design grabs even more attention.

If you’re launching a magazine-style blog then Arvo can work well as a strong header. But if your blog works better with sans-serif fonts this can be too much. One alternative that’s a bit more subtle is Crete Round but it doesn’t have the same eye-catching appeal as Arvo.

5. Raleway

I’ve seen Raleway on many larger blogs and online magazines for its distinct style and large variety of font variations.

For big heading text I think a mid-level thickness works best so the letters don’t get too wide. Default letter spacing is great so every word is clearly legible.

One feature unique to Raleway is the “w” letter form. It crosses in the middle which looks like two “v”s stacked together. Some may like this, others won’t. But it’s definitely unique to Raleway so it’ll stand out in your page headers too.

6. Catamaran

One of the newer fonts I found recently is Catamaran. It comes with 9 font styles from thin to black and varying thicknesses inbetween.

What I like most about this font is the offbeat lettering. Each letter takes on a very unique style and you can see this in the bolder styles. When used in heading text these letters really shine and jump off the page.

Because the bold styles are so thick you should only use Catamaran in headers with larger font sizes. It can look OK at all sizes but Catamaran really feels like a thick header typeface.

7. PT Sans

PT Sans is soft with smooth edges and thin letters. For headers I only like the bold style of PT Sans because the “normal” style just feels way too thin.

I also prefer PT Sans for headers only since it just feels too soft for regular body text. But any PT Sans header is going to look amazingly clean and readable. This font actually has a sister named PT Serif that also works well.

Between the two, I personally prefer PT Sans. It has smoother edges than the serif version and I feel it just works better in page headings and especially for blogs.

8. Open Sans

Open Sans is small, versatile, and super clean. It deserves a spot in this collection because it’s a simple font and one of the fastest loading fonts from the entire Google Fonts library.

The majority of sans-serif fonts play well with any site. Plus you can use sans-serif fonts in both your header and body text making Open Sans a reasonable choice for the entire website. One alternative I really like is Muli which has a lot more character as a header font.

But Muli’s downside is the larger file size. Ultimately this is what makes Open Sans so great because slower sites don’t rank as well and they provide a worse UX all around.

9. Roboto Slab

For a strong serif header font you might try Roboto Slab and just see how it looks. The letters aren’t too thick and the tags that hang off don’t distract the reader.

I generally prefer Roboto Slab for headers instead of the sans-serif version called Roboto. The serif version just feels stronger and leaves a much bigger impression on the viewer.

Truth be told they’re both awesome and you can’t go wrong either way. They both support all the common unicode characters and they’re both amazing choices for your website headings.

10. Ubuntu

The free Ubuntu font can be used for practically anything from nav text to large headers and even body copy. It’s extremely versatile and it’s lightweight with a pretty fast load time.

Rounded edges on the letters make this feel sleek and modern. It’s also one of the few fonts that really can be used in multiple places on your site which can cut down the total number of fonts you need.

Ubuntu was designed back in 2010 so it’s been around for quite a while. Now that webfonts are much more common the Ubuntu family is widely used in web design.

Wrapping Up

Whenever I design a new site these 10 fonts are my go-to choices for headers. They’re much better than the stock OS defaults and your layout will really stand out from the others with these strong header fonts.

from Web Designing https://1stwebdesigner.com/top-google-webfonts-header-text/

[simplypsd1]

Top 10 Google Web Fonts For Bold Header Text

Since webfont support is basically universal there’s no good reason to stick to the defaults. Google Webfonts is the largest source of free fonts with hundreds of typefaces to pick from.

Since page headers are the strongest elements they usually work best with custom fonts. However it can be tough whittling down the best choices, and that’s exactly why I wrote this post.

All the Fonts You Could Ask For

DOWNLOAD NOW

1. Montserrat

The first in my collection is Montserrat. This font can work for pretty much anything but I think it works incredibly well as header text.

I’ve used this for navigation text with all caps, customized letter spacing, along with many different font styles from thin to super thick. Montserrat fits the bill perfectly across the board and it’s one of the more universal fonts blending into anything from a tech blog to a funeral parlor website.

The font only weighs about 500 bytes using the default style so it’s incredibly light. And with so many different styles you can get a lot of different looks from this one family.

If you’re looking for a unique heading font try Montserrat. It probably won’t work for everyone but it’s a safe starting font that many designers love.

2. Merriweather

A much thicker serif alternative is Merriweather which I also like as a body font. This versatile typeface really looks great anywhere on your site and it’ll bring plenty of attention to your headers.

If you try Merriweather for a larger page heading I suggest using the bold or bold italic style. They are surprisingly clean but they probably need some letter spacing adjustments. Either way the style and darkness of the letters are super easy to follow.

When pairing this font I usually do a sans-serif body typeface. The contrasting styles create a natural divide between headers & body copy. Plus most people find sans-serif easier to read on average for body content.

But I see a lot of sites with serif headers and they all look great. Merriweather is a nice starting point for serif, but if you don’t like it you’ll find tons of alternatives in this post.

3. Josefin Sans

Modern and classy best describes Josefin Sans. It feels like a font straight from a 1950s jazz lounge, or maybe something you’d see on the front page of The New Yorker.

It does have a distinct curvy style and the thin letters save a lot of horizontal space. You can toy with all-caps or different letter spacings to create many unique styles all from this one font family.

Some sites just look better with thin heading fonts. If you’re looking for one to try I absolutely recommend Josefin Sans with its unique letter designs and its many bold/italic styles.

4. Arvo

One other serif font I really like is Arvo. This font has a lot of character which you’ll notice right away in the bolder styles.

I really feel like Arvo works best on blogs and digital magazines because the font grabs so much focus. It’s one of the strongest fonts in this list and the serif design grabs even more attention.

If you’re launching a magazine-style blog then Arvo can work well as a strong header. But if your blog works better with sans-serif fonts this can be too much. One alternative that’s a bit more subtle is Crete Round but it doesn’t have the same eye-catching appeal as Arvo.

5. Raleway

I’ve seen Raleway on many larger blogs and online magazines for its distinct style and large variety of font variations.

For big heading text I think a mid-level thickness works best so the letters don’t get too wide. Default letter spacing is great so every word is clearly legible.

One feature unique to Raleway is the “w” letter form. It crosses in the middle which looks like two “v”s stacked together. Some may like this, others won’t. But it’s definitely unique to Raleway so it’ll stand out in your page headers too.

6. Catamaran

One of the newer fonts I found recently is Catamaran. It comes with 9 font styles from thin to black and varying thicknesses inbetween.

What I like most about this font is the offbeat lettering. Each letter takes on a very unique style and you can see this in the bolder styles. When used in heading text these letters really shine and jump off the page.

Because the bold styles are so thick you should only use Catamaran in headers with larger font sizes. It can look OK at all sizes but Catamaran really feels like a thick header typeface.

7. PT Sans

PT Sans is soft with smooth edges and thin letters. For headers I only like the bold style of PT Sans because the “normal” style just feels way too thin.

I also prefer PT Sans for headers only since it just feels too soft for regular body text. But any PT Sans header is going to look amazingly clean and readable. This font actually has a sister named PT Serif that also works well.

Between the two, I personally prefer PT Sans. It has smoother edges than the serif version and I feel it just works better in page headings and especially for blogs.

8. Open Sans

Open Sans is small, versatile, and super clean. It deserves a spot in this collection because it’s a simple font and one of the fastest loading fonts from the entire Google Fonts library.

The majority of sans-serif fonts play well with any site. Plus you can use sans-serif fonts in both your header and body text making Open Sans a reasonable choice for the entire website. One alternative I really like is Muli which has a lot more character as a header font.

But Muli’s downside is the larger file size. Ultimately this is what makes Open Sans so great because slower sites don’t rank as well and they provide a worse UX all around.

9. Roboto Slab

For a strong serif header font you might try Roboto Slab and just see how it looks. The letters aren’t too thick and the tags that hang off don’t distract the reader.

I generally prefer Roboto Slab for headers instead of the sans-serif version called Roboto. The serif version just feels stronger and leaves a much bigger impression on the viewer.

Truth be told they’re both awesome and you can’t go wrong either way. They both support all the common unicode characters and they’re both amazing choices for your website headings.

10. Ubuntu

The free Ubuntu font can be used for practically anything from nav text to large headers and even body copy. It’s extremely versatile and it’s lightweight with a pretty fast load time.

Rounded edges on the letters make this feel sleek and modern. It’s also one of the few fonts that really can be used in multiple places on your site which can cut down the total number of fonts you need.

Ubuntu was designed back in 2010 so it’s been around for quite a while. Now that webfonts are much more common the Ubuntu family is widely used in web design.

Wrapping Up

Whenever I design a new site these 10 fonts are my go-to choices for headers. They’re much better than the stock OS defaults and your layout will really stand out from the others with these strong header fonts.

from 1stWebDesigner https://ift.tt/2pBiCIB

Top 10 Google Web Fonts For Bold Header Text See more on: SimplyPSD.com Blog

from https://ift.tt/2U8sTe6

[webbygraphic001]

What’s New for Designers, September 2018

This month’s collection of new tools and elements for designers has a common theme – productivity. There are so many things here to help you do work better and more efficiently. But there’s fun too…make sure to look for some of the hidden design gems deep in this article. They’ll bring a smile to your face for sure.

If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should be featured next month, tweet it to @carriecousins to be considered!

Brandy

Brandy is a brand asset management tool for macOS. Use it to keep up with colors, logos, gradient patterns and fonts by project. Everything works in real-time and one account can contain as many brand projects as you like. Plus, it works using drag and drop so assets are always at your fingertips.

Picular

What if you could Google a color? That’s what Picular does. The tool allows you to put in a word or phrase and returns color results – by hex code – that represent that word. It works by pulling images of that word and boiling them down to a single hue. (Hover over colors to see the source image.)

Drawser

Drawser is a vector graphics tool that works in-browser so that you can draw and edit on the screen. It includes interactive features so you can collaborate on vector-based projects online. Drawser includes a social component and community as well with the ability to publish projects and allow other users to refine them in the open source platform.

RSSHub

RSSHub is a lightweight RSS aggregator that can grab a feed from pretty much anything. (It does everything you wish some of the old RSS options of the past did.) The documentation is straightforward and implementation is quite seamless with plenty of options to get just the feed you want.

SVG Filters

SVG Filters is a fun playground where you can add different effects to SVG-based images and text with just a click. Use the toggle settings for each filter and watch the image change on the screen. Copy the provided code and your filtered image is ready to go.

Code Surfer

Code Surfer is a React component for scrolling, zooming and highlighting code. You can highlight single or multiple lines of code, scale long snippets and more.

ShrinkMe

ShrinkMe is an image compression app that works in seconds. Drag and drop you photo into the window and get a downloadable file that’s significantly smaller. (My sample image shrunk by 62 percent without image quality loss.) Plus, this tool works offline and you can shrink multiple files at once.

Fake 3D Effect

Can’t make it? Then fake it. This pen by Robin Delaporte features a fake 3D effect with a depth map. It’s definitely an interesting way to use a three-dimensional effect with an image and no fancy equipment.

Splitting

Splitting helps you create a trendy split text effect with CSS. The tool creates elements and adds CSS variables for animating text, grids, and more. It’s lightweight and easy to use with plenty of documentation to guide you through set up.

Tutorial: Advanced Effects with CSS Background Blend Modes

Bennett Feely takes on how to work with a few different CSS properties to create blended background objects. The tutorial primarily focuses on background-blend-mode and how to create impressive patterns.

Food & Drinks Icon Set

The Food & Drinks Icon Set is a collection of 60 icons featuring plenty of edibles. Each icon comes in a cull color style as well as line icon style. Download the vector shapes and customize for projects.

Gradient Icons

Gradient Icons is a pack of 100 icons of varying types with trendy gradient coloring in a flat style. The collection expands to 1,000 icons in the full paid set.

EmojiOne 4.0

EmojiOne 4.0 is a premium collection of emojis restyled for 2018. Each design has been tweaked to reflect current design trends with subtle gradients and a clean finish.

Best Animated Logos

Best Animated Logos is a collection of logos you know with awesome animations attached. From Google to Tumblr to Skype to Reddit, these animations will inspire you for sure.

Heard at Work

Heard at Work is a collection of overheard exclamations that aims to capture what it’s like to work in a New York design studio. It’s fun, honest and maybe a little bit silly. The project was created by Justine Braisted.

The Carlton Dance

The Carlton Dance pen just makes me smile. A favorite move from the beloved Carlton character from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (a 90s sitcom) has morphed from a meme to a pure CSS character.

NerdRobe

NerdRobe makes totally cool—albeit geeky—shirts for designers. There’s a new design every other week and shirts are just $10 plus shipping (based on your location). So you’ll want to keep checking back for the design that fits your sensibilities.

Abhaya Libre

Abhaya Libre is a unicode compliant, complete libre version of the widely used Sinhala typeface FM Abhaya and includes Sinhala and Latin support. It includes five weights and is also available as a Google Font.

Brand New Roman

Brand New Roman is a typeface generator that uses brand icons and marks to create a font. The end result can look a little like a ransom note, but it can be fun to play with. Put in your words and download.

Jomhuria

Jomhuria is a stencil style typeface that’s highly readable. It’s designed for large sizes and might not work as well in smaller applications. The full set includes more than 800 characters.

Library 3 AM

Library 3 AM is a somewhat round inline typeface with two styles. It’s great for display or poster designs and is free for all uses.

Space Grotesk

Space Grotesk is a sans serif typeface with five styles available with the open font license. It features a full character site with emphasis on circular elements.

UStroke

UStroke is a handwriting-style decorative typeface with a grunge feel. It includes all uppercase characters with a few alternates and numerals. Although application is limited, it’s an interesting option.

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source from Webdesigner Depot https://ift.tt/2O3YZ82 from Blogger https://ift.tt/2MinFYF

[iyarpage]

What’s New for Designers, September 2018

This month’s collection of new tools and elements for designers has a common theme – productivity. There are so many things here to help you do work better and more efficiently. But there’s fun too…make sure to look for some of the hidden design gems deep in this article. They’ll bring a smile to your face for sure.

If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should be featured next month, tweet it to @carriecousins to be considered!

Brandy

Brandy is a brand asset management tool for macOS. Use it to keep up with colors, logos, gradient patterns and fonts by project. Everything works in real-time and one account can contain as many brand projects as you like. Plus, it works using drag and drop so assets are always at your fingertips.

Picular

What if you could Google a color? That’s what Picular does. The tool allows you to put in a word or phrase and returns color results – by hex code – that represent that word. It works by pulling images of that word and boiling them down to a single hue. (Hover over colors to see the source image.)

Drawser

Drawser is a vector graphics tool that works in-browser so that you can draw and edit on the screen. It includes interactive features so you can collaborate on vector-based projects online. Drawser includes a social component and community as well with the ability to publish projects and allow other users to refine them in the open source platform.

RSSHub

RSSHub is a lightweight RSS aggregator that can grab a feed from pretty much anything. (It does everything you wish some of the old RSS options of the past did.) The documentation is straightforward and implementation is quite seamless with plenty of options to get just the feed you want.

SVG Filters

SVG Filters is a fun playground where you can add different effects to SVG-based images and text with just a click. Use the toggle settings for each filter and watch the image change on the screen. Copy the provided code and your filtered image is ready to go.

Code Surfer

Code Surfer is a React component for scrolling, zooming and highlighting code. You can highlight single or multiple lines of code, scale long snippets and more.

ShrinkMe

ShrinkMe is an image compression app that works in seconds. Drag and drop you photo into the window and get a downloadable file that’s significantly smaller. (My sample image shrunk by 62 percent without image quality loss.) Plus, this tool works offline and you can shrink multiple files at once.

Fake 3D Effect

Can’t make it? Then fake it. This pen by Robin Delaporte features a fake 3D effect with a depth map. It’s definitely an interesting way to use a three-dimensional effect with an image and no fancy equipment.

Splitting

Splitting helps you create a trendy split text effect with CSS. The tool creates elements and adds CSS variables for animating text, grids, and more. It’s lightweight and easy to use with plenty of documentation to guide you through set up.

Tutorial: Advanced Effects with CSS Background Blend Modes

Bennett Feely takes on how to work with a few different CSS properties to create blended background objects. The tutorial primarily focuses on background-blend-mode and how to create impressive patterns.

Food & Drinks Icon Set

The Food & Drinks Icon Set is a collection of 60 icons featuring plenty of edibles. Each icon comes in a cull color style as well as line icon style. Download the vector shapes and customize for projects.

Gradient Icons

Gradient Icons is a pack of 100 icons of varying types with trendy gradient coloring in a flat style. The collection expands to 1,000 icons in the full paid set.

EmojiOne 4.0

EmojiOne 4.0 is a premium collection of emojis restyled for 2018. Each design has been tweaked to reflect current design trends with subtle gradients and a clean finish.

Best Animated Logos

Best Animated Logos is a collection of logos you know with awesome animations attached. From Google to Tumblr to Skype to Reddit, these animations will inspire you for sure.

Heard at Work

Heard at Work is a collection of overheard exclamations that aims to capture what it’s like to work in a New York design studio. It’s fun, honest and maybe a little bit silly. The project was created by Justine Braisted.

The Carlton Dance

The Carlton Dance pen just makes me smile. A favorite move from the beloved Carlton character from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (a 90s sitcom) has morphed from a meme to a pure CSS character.

NerdRobe

NerdRobe makes totally cool—albeit geeky—shirts for designers. There’s a new design every other week and shirts are just $10 plus shipping (based on your location). So you’ll want to keep checking back for the design that fits your sensibilities.

Abhaya Libre

Abhaya Libre is a unicode compliant, complete libre version of the widely used Sinhala typeface FM Abhaya and includes Sinhala and Latin support. It includes five weights and is also available as a Google Font.

Brand New Roman

Brand New Roman is a typeface generator that uses brand icons and marks to create a font. The end result can look a little like a ransom note, but it can be fun to play with. Put in your words and download.

Jomhuria

Jomhuria is a stencil style typeface that’s highly readable. It’s designed for large sizes and might not work as well in smaller applications. The full set includes more than 800 characters.

Library 3 AM

Library 3 AM is a somewhat round inline typeface with two styles. It’s great for display or poster designs and is free for all uses.

Space Grotesk

Space Grotesk is a sans serif typeface with five styles available with the open font license. It features a full character site with emphasis on circular elements.

UStroke

UStroke is a handwriting-style decorative typeface with a grunge feel. It includes all uppercase characters with a few alternates and numerals. Although application is limited, it’s an interesting option.

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;} .alignleft {float:left;} p.showcase {clear:both;} body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;} What’s New for Designers, September 2018 published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

[technato]

Hiding Information in Plain Text

Subtle changes to letter shapes can embed messages

Image: Columbia University

<!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } –>

Computer scientists have now invented a way to hide secret messages in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of letters.

The new technique, named FontCode , works with common font families such as Times Roman and Helvetica. It is compatible with most word-processing software, including Microsoft Word, as well as image-editing and drawing programs, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Although there are obvious applications for espionage with FontCode, its inventors suggest it has more practical uses in terms of embedding metadata into texts, much like watermarking. “You can imagine that it would be used to provide extra information, such as authors, copyright and so on, about a document,” says study senior author Changxi Zheng, a computer scientist at Columbia University. “Another application is to protect legal documents: Our technique can be used to detect if a document, even when printed on paper, has been tampered with or not. It can even be used to tell which part of the document is tampered.”

Changxi and his collaborators will detail  their findings  in August at the  SIGGRAPH   conference in Vancouver.

Another potential application of FontCode is as an alternative to QR codes. For instance, when people snap a photo of a poster with FontCode-modified text, their smartphones may be redirected “to a website or Youtube video about that poster,” Zheng says. “This is similar to what a QR code can do, but now without the need of putting a black-and-white pattern that can be distracting or compromise the aesthetics of the poster.”

Image: Changxi Zheng/Columbia Engineering

Someone using FontCode would supply a secret message and a carrier text document. FontCode converts the secret message to a bit string (ASCII or Unicode) and then into a sequence of integers.

FontCode embeds data into texts using minute perturbations to components of letters. This includes changing the width of strokes , adjusting the height of ascenders and descenders , and tightening or loosening the curves in serifs and the bowls of letters such as o, p, and b.

A kind of artificial-intelligence system known as a convolutional neural network can recognize these perturbations and help recover the embedded messages. The amount of information FontCode can hide is limited only by the number of letters on which it acts, the researchers say.

“Traditionally, a text document is meant to deliver information to the human only. Now we show that it can also deliver embedded information to digital intelligent systems, and the two parts of information delivery do not conflict,” Zheng says. “This is drastically different from existing methods such as QR codes or optical barcodes, which are meant to read by digital systems but occupy a certain area on the paper.”

To account for potential distortions to text due to concerns such as lighting, blurriness or camera angle, the scientists relied on the 1,700-year-old Chinese remainder theorem , which can help reconstruct missing information. This strategy could help recover hidden messages even when 25 percent of perturbations to texts are not recognized correctly.

Moreover, FontCode not only embeds messages in text, but can also encrypt them. For instance, users can agree on a private key that can specify the order in which hidden letters are read.

Although other methods exist to hide a message in text, FontCode’s inventors say their new technique is the first to work independent of document type. It can also retain secret information even when a document or an image with text is printed onto paper or converted to another file type, they say.

The researchers have filed a patent for FontCode with Columbia Technology Ventures . In addition, “we want to extend this technique to other languages,” Zheng says. “We demonstrated using English in this project; it might require a bit of thought to extend it to other languages—especially the logographic languages, such as Chinese.”

Hiding Information in Plain Text syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[zulikridesign-blog]

LPC

Briefs which I choose 

ISTD “MARK MY WORDS” Brief: This brief is about the origins of language. Trace the history of a word, group of words or phrase and show where it came from – its provenance – how and when it became part of the English language and how its meaning, use, spelling and pronunciation may have changed in the process. This is an exploration of the richness and diversity of languages. Look for the surprising, the most interesting – words you have never considered and the stories that may have never been told. Use your typographic skills to inform, interpret and express your findings and share your findings in a way that will surprise and delight the reader. For this project I chose word “Font” Plan: 
Make a Research about Etymology of the Word “Font” http://www.etymonline.com/word/font
 Create video (animation) which will tell the story of the word “Font” (video dictionary) from which language it came to English, the meaning, usage etcMain Goal:  Make clear, interesting, understandable video about ethnicity of the Font word
 Since ISTD's goal is to give both tutors and students the opportunity to explore and develop typography as an inherent part of the design process and thus bring typography to the forefront of their design education. I should  pay attention on the usage of the typefaces as well.
 Ideas 

Kinetic Typography - a) Minimalistic b) Less Than 1 min c) informative (show the Inspiration) https://vimeo.com/81900537 https://vimeo.com/50566738  

Collage Style - a) Retro Style; Futurism; b) Less than 1 min c) informative (show Inspiration) https://vimeo.com/172429381 https://vimeo.com/41031693 https://vimeo.com/42421799

Make an Flat Animation a) minimalistic b) each detail will be animated c) less tan 1 min (show inspiration) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uenXdbycgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wbuS9Wek4


RESEARCH : /fɒnt/

FONT from Old French fonte a founding, casting, from Vulgar Latin funditus (unattested) a casting, from Latin fundere to melt; The term refers to the process of casting metal type at a type foundry. In a manual printing (letterpress) house the word "font" would refer to a complete set of metal type that would be used to typeset an entire page. "typeface, set of letters of a particular type," 1680s, earlier "a casting" (1570s), from Middle French fonte "a casting," noun use of fem. past participle of fondre "to melt" (see found (v.2)). So called because all the letters in a given set were cast at the same time. 
Alternative Form FOUNT (UK) (plural fonts) 1 (typography) A set of glyphs of unified design, belonging to one typeface (e.g., Helvetica), style (e.g., italic), and weight (e.g., bold). Usually representing the letters of an alphabet and its supplementary characters. 1 In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size. 2 In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film they are stored on. 3 In digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it. 2 (computing) A computer file containing the code used to draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a computer display or printer.Derived terms • font family • multilingual font • Unicode font • bitmap font • screen font • outline font • printer font • font suitcase • roman font

RSA “MOVING PICTURES” 

Brief: 

Conceive and produce an animation to accompany one of the two selected audio files that will clarify, energise and illuminate the content.

For this project I chose 

File B: ‘Post-Truth’ by Matthew d’Ancona (Excerpt length: 1:01, originally recorded on 15 June 2017)

Plan:

Make a research and analyze similar videos from TED ED to understand on which details to pay attention and also understand the whole principles of development that kind of informative videos 


Create a video Animation which could clearly convey the meaning of “Post Truth” 
Main Goal: Make it clear and not boring, try to use interesting techniques in developing the animation, not only in digital way.

Ideas: 

Stopmotion- a) handmade b) not childish c) mixing 2-3 different techniques 
https://vimeo.com/26877221 https://vimeo.com/51184255 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NS4CbBJQ84&t=2s

After Effects Animation- a) the whole illustrations and titles are designed and animated in digital way on illustrator photoshop and on after effects b) keep the idea of mixing different graphic styles because of the topic c) use sound effects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWYhMoDTN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJSiUm6jvI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGLYcYCm2FM

News Paper Cut outs- a) all details and titles are made of News papers (can be painted)  b) stopmotion c)  showing the hands (how they change news, facts in news papers etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NGei3H8yRk

TED ED Video analysis

In those videos the main subject (theme) could be represented in an abstract form. For example in “Why is it so hard to cure the cancer?” Video the Cancer is shown as a       smoke inside a circle. 


The animation is not fast so viewer could focus more on podcast part + In “Why Do we Dream” Video Some of the sentences are “underlined” by showing the words which could be associated with the topic  

Also some of the sentences of the podcasts are quoted so in typographical way so viewer could remember  or even note them  

Play with associations “Questions No One Knows the Answers”  

In “The World’s most Mysterious book” Video we could hear that the speaker talks about handwritings inside book, so the whole video is designed in a handmade book style. Also in the beginning of the video we could hear that the speaker talks about dreams and in the video we could see the imitation of “dream” by using the blurred corners. Script- background like a papyrus.

Penguin and Puffin “BOOK COVER”

Book Cover “

Animal Farm” by George Orwell 

For this project I would like to create book cover for one of my favorite Book by George Orwell 


Brief: Your cover design needs to include all the cover copy supplied and be designed to the specified design template – B format, 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine width 8 mm, incorporating the Penguin branding and all additional elements such as the barcode. Please refer to the Submissions Details page for full details of the spec and how to submit your entry.‘In a hundred ways Animal Farm triggers our modern intelligence and persists in its relevance, and its seemingly simple yet subtle fable still belongs to us as we try to find our way through the changing political and moral labyrinths of twentieth-century history.’ - Malcolm BradburyWe are looking for a cover design which will reflect the book’s status as one of the great modern political allegories of our time, as relevant today as it was when it was first published over 50 years ago.  It is rich with ideas, characters, allegory, political and moral philosophy – read it and decide for yourself how best to showcase the content of this remarkable novel through your cover design and bring it to a new generation of readers.

Plan

: Create a Book Cover which will represent the idea and atmosphere of the Book It can be photo or illustration, even typographical illustration





Main Goal:

make it look interesting and catchy, so people would like to have it on their book shelves



Ideas:

Make a design based on photography 

Illustration with my favorite last “scene” of the book "No question now what has happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Illustration made in Russian Constructivism Style *like propaganda poster*

Typographical Cover with shapes of pigs 

Upcoming - Brief for Microsoft; Storyboard for the Video; First Sketches for the Book Cover

[itbeatsbookmarks]

(Via: Hacker News)

10 most popular coding fonts

Programmers spend countless hours working in their text editors writing codes. And it’s only natural to try making your workplaces as comfortable and pleasant as possible. That’s why many programmers expend time in choosing the right colour scheme and the best font for their code.

Of course some are pretty happy with their default typefaces and don’t want to go around changing setups. But if you are passionate about your text editor you’ll try finding that ideal font that will fulfil your requirements.

In this article we’ll try to give you a few ideas concerning the fonts that are popular among the coders these days. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something you like.

1. Inconsolata is a highly readable and clear monospaced font created by Raph Levien. This typeface was designed for code listings and possesses the attention to detail for high resolution rendering. Most apparent some of the details are in print, for example, the subtle curves in lowercase “t”, “v”, “w”, and “y”. Given that Inconsolata draws its inspiration from many sources, it also borrowed “micro-serifs” from some Japanese Gothic fonts, which enhanced the appearance of legibility and crispness.

Inconsolata has a humanist sans design and has received favourable reviews from many programmers. It’s an open-source font released under the SIL Open Font License.

2. Fira Mono is a monospaced typeface part of the Fira font family designed by Erik Spiekermann. It was created as a counterpart to Fira Sans purposed to integrate with the character of the FirefoxOS. It’s a well rendering and balanced font specifically oriented to work across devices with varying screen qualities available in regular, medium, and bold.

It’s released under the Open Font License.

3. Source Code Pro is a monospaced sans serif open source programming font the idea of which was to maximize usability and avoid common design flaws. The design of this typeface presents vertical proportions, an ample width which increases readability and an extensive number of weights to choose from.

It’s a second font family released by Adobe under the SIL Open Font License. It was created by Paul D. Hunt with programmers in mind oriented to work well in user interface (UI) environments. The typeface work on all platforms and renders beautifully using the “Anti-Aliased with Smoothing” Font Quality setting

4. Anonymous Pro is a monospaced fixed-width font purposely designed by Mark Simonson for coding. It presents a Unicode-based international character set that has support for most Western and Central European Latin-based languages, Greek, and Cyrillic. This typeface has a slashed zero, squared dots in the semi-colon to better differ it from the comma, and other great characters with distinct shapes that cannot be confused.

Anonymous Pro is based on an earlier typeface and has four variants. It is distributed with the Open Font License and contains embedded bitmaps for smaller sizes and special “box drawing” characters.

5. M+ 1M was created by Japanese designer Coji Morishita. The name of this font consists from the letter ‘M’ that stands for ‘Minimum’ and the plus sign which means above minimum. It’s a condensed monospaced typeface produced specifically for programmers. It has several variations and each of them somewhat alter the way the font looks.

Contrasting straight lines and hand-drawn curves are what make M+ 1 absolutely great. It is very clean and stylish and it’s a perfect font if you want to put together as many characters in one line as possible.

It’s distributed under the Free license.

6. Hack is a monospaced typeface that was designed by Chris Simpkins to be optically balanced and highly qualified for coding. Among its characteristic features are low contrast design to make it very readable at common coding text sizes, a large x-height, and wide aperture. It comes with four font styles: Regular, Bold, Oblique, and Bold Oblique, and, among that, the whole Hack project continue expending under the contributions of the Bitstream Vera & DejaVu projects.

It’s distributed under the Hack Open Font License.

7. DejaVu Sans Mono is a typeface designed to be suitable for technical work. It’s a part of an open source DejaVu font family based on Bitstream Vera fonts, purposed for greater coverage of Unicode and to provide a wider range of characters and styles at the same time maintaining the original look. Font development happened through the organized collaboration from many contributors.

DejaVu Sans Mono makes it easy to makes it easy to tell apart the uppercase i from the figure 1 and lowercase L, as well as the zero figure from O.

It’s available under a Free license.

8. Droid Sans Mono is a fixed width monospaced typeface with an excellent legibility characteristics designed by Steve Matteson of Ascender Corporation originally for Android. The creator was aiming for the optimal quality and reading comfort on a mobile handset, and further along font was optimized and became a part of many programmers’ editors. It features a non-proportional spacing for displaying text in a tabular setting and contains Old Style Figures along with the extensive character set coverage including Western Europe, Eastern/Central Europe, Baltic, Cyrillic, Greek and Turkish support.

Droid Sans Mono is available via Apache License, Version 2.0.

9. Ubuntu Mono has the distinct slanted design and tends to feel more condensed. Among its creators is Vincent Connare. The font has been designed primarily for use on screen displays and is the default font for the releases of the Ubuntu operating system. It’s not very optimized for other platforms.

Ubuntu is a modern, humanist-style sans-serif typeface family the scope of which includes all the languages used by the various Ubuntu users. It was designed by London-based type foundry Dalton Maag, with funding by Canonical Ltd. It’s fully Unicode compliant and contains Latin A and B extended character sets, Greek polytonic, and Cyrillic extended, with the inclusion of the Indian rupee signand. It also aims to extend to cover more written languages.

The Ubuntu font family is licensed under the Ubuntu Font Licence.

10. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono was designed by Jim Lyles. This typeface has excellent numerals and clearly distinguishable figure 1 from lowercase L and uppercases i, which is fully-serifed. It’s a TrueType font that has hinting instructions and is fit for technical work. The rendering quality of it improves on low-resolution devices, like computer monitors.

Vera Sans Mono itself covers only common punctuation and the Latin alphabet with some diacritics.

This font group is distributed under a liberal license.

Wrapping up

So, this was our list of fonts that we’ve considered to be the most popular for coding purposes. Let us know what you think about this article and, most certainly, share your thoughts concerning the fonts you prefer to use.

[noahdnicholus]

The Top 10 Google Webfonts For Strong Header Text

Since webfont support is basically universal there’s no good reason to stick to the defaults. Google Webfonts is the largest source of free fonts with hundreds of typefaces to pick from.

Since page headers are the strongest elements they usually work best with custom fonts. However it can be tough whittling down the best choices, and that’s exactly why I wrote this post.

1. Montserrat

The first in my collection is Montserrat. This font can work for pretty much anything but I think it works incredibly well as header text.

I’ve used this for navigation text with all caps, customized letter spacing, along with many different font styles from thin to super thick. Montserrat fits the bill perfectly across the board and it’s one of the more universal fonts blending into anything from a tech blog to a funeral parlor website.

The font only weighs about 500 bytes using the default style so it’s incredibly light. And with so many different styles you can get a lot of different looks from this one family.

If you’re looking for a unique heading font try Montserrat. It probably won’t work for everyone but it’s a safe starting font that many designers love.

2. Merriweather

A much thicker serif alternative is Merriweather which I also like as a body font. This versatile typeface really looks great anywhere on your site and it’ll bring plenty of attention to your headers.

If you try Merriweather for a larger page heading I suggest using the bold or bold italic style. They are surprisingly clean but they probably need some letter spacing adjustments. Either way the style and darkness of the letters are super easy to follow.

When pairing this font I usually do a sans-serif body typeface. The contrasting styles create a natural divide between headers & body copy. Plus most people find sans-serif easier to read on average for body content.

But I see a lot of sites with serif headers and they all look great. Merriweather is a nice starting point for serif, but if you don’t like it you’ll find tons of alternatives in this post.

3. Josefin Sans

Modern and classy best describes Josefin Sans. It feels like a font straight from a 1950s jazz lounge, or maybe something you’d see on the front page of The New Yorker.

It does have a distinct curvy style and the thin letters save a lot of horizontal space. You can toy with all-caps or different letter spacings to create many unique styles all from this one font family.

Some sites just look better with thin heading fonts. If you’re looking for one to try I absolutely recommend Josefin Sans with its unique letter designs and its many bold/italic styles.

4. Arvo

One other serif font I really like is Arvo. This font has a lot of character which you’ll notice right away in the bolder styles.

I really feel like Arvo works best on blogs and digital magazines because the font grabs so much focus. It’s one of the strongest fonts in this list and the serif design grabs even more attention.

If you’re launching a magazine-style blog then Arvo can work well as a strong header. But if your blog works better with sans-serif fonts this can be too much. One alternative that’s a bit more subtle is Crete Round but it doesn’t have the same eye-catching appeal as Arvo.

5. Raleway

I’ve seen Raleway on many larger blogs and online magazines for its distinct style and large variety of font variations.

For big heading text I think a mid-level thickness works best so the letters don’t get too wide. Default letter spacing is great so every word is clearly legible.

One feature unique to Raleway is the “w” letter form. It crosses in the middle which looks like two “v”s stacked together. Some may like this, others won’t. But it’s definitely unique to Raleway so it’ll stand out in your page headers too.

6. Catamaran

One of the newer fonts I found recently is Catamaran. It comes with 9 font styles from thin to black and varying thicknesses inbetween.

What I like most about this font is the offbeat lettering. Each letter takes on a very unique style and you can see this in the bolder styles. When used in heading text these letters really shine and jump off the page.

Because the bold styles are so thick you should only use Catamaran in headers with larger font sizes. It can look OK at all sizes but Catamaran really feels like a thick header typeface.

7. PT Sans

PT Sans is soft with smooth edges and thin letters. For headers I only like the bold style of PT Sans because the “normal” style just feels way too thin.

I also prefer PT Sans for headers only since it just feels too soft for regular body text. But any PT Sans header is going to look amazingly clean and readable. This font actually has a sister named PT Serif that also works well.

Between the two, I personally prefer PT Sans. It has smoother edges than the serif version and I feel it just works better in page headings and especially for blogs.

8. Open Sans

Open Sans is small, versatile, and super clean. It deserves a spot in this collection because it’s a simple font and one of the fastest loading fonts from the entire Google Fonts library.

The majority of sans-serif fonts play well with any site. Plus you can use sans-serif fonts in both your header and body text making Open Sans a reasonable choice for the entire website. One alternative I really like is Muli which has a lot more character as a header font.

But Muli’s downside is the larger file size. Ultimately this is what makes Open Sans so great because slower sites don’t rank as well and they provide a worse UX all around.

9. Roboto Slab

For a strong serif header font you might try Roboto Slab and just see how it looks. The letters aren’t too thick and the tags that hang off don’t distract the reader.

I generally prefer Roboto Slab for headers instead of the sans-serif version called Roboto. The serif version just feels stronger and leaves a much bigger impression on the viewer.

Truth be told they’re both awesome and you can’t go wrong either way. They both support all the common unicode characters and they’re both amazing choices for your website headings.

10. Ubuntu

The free Ubuntu font can be used for practically anything from nav text to large headers and even body copy. It’s extremely versatile and it’s lightweight with a pretty fast load time.

Rounded edges on the letters make this feel sleek and modern. It’s also one of the few fonts that really can be used in multiple places on your site which can cut down the total number of fonts you need.

Ubuntu was designed back in 2010 so it’s been around for quite a while. Now that webfonts are much more common the Ubuntu family is widely used in web design.

Wrapping Up

Whenever I design a new site these 10 fonts are my go-to choices for headers. They’re much better than the stock OS defaults and your layout will really stand out from the others with these strong header fonts.

from Web Designing Tips https://1stwebdesigner.com/top-google-webfonts-header-text/

[technato]

Hiding Information in Plain Text

Subtle changes to letter shapes can embed messages

Image: Columbia University

<!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } –>

Computer scientists have now invented a way to hide secret messages in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of letters.

The new technique, named FontCode , works with common font families such as Times Roman and Helvetica. It is compatible with most word-processing software, including Microsoft Word, as well as image-editing and drawing programs, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Although there are obvious applications for espionage with FontCode, its inventors suggest it has more practical uses in terms of embedding metadata into texts, much like watermarking. “You can imagine that it would be used to provide extra information, such as authors, copyright and so on, about a document,” says study senior author Changxi Zheng, a computer scientist at Columbia University. “Another application is to protect legal documents: Our technique can be used to detect if a document, even when printed on paper, has been tampered with or not. It can even be used to tell which part of the document is tampered.”

Changxi and his collaborators will detail  their findings  in August at the  SIGGRAPH   conference in Vancouver.

Another potential application of FontCode is as an alternative to QR codes. For instance, when people snap a photo of a poster with FontCode-modified text, their smartphones may be redirected “to a website or Youtube video about that poster,” Zheng says. “This is similar to what a QR code can do, but now without the need of putting a black-and-white pattern that can be distracting or compromise the aesthetics of the poster.”

Image: Changxi Zheng/Columbia Engineering

Someone using FontCode would supply a secret message and a carrier text document. FontCode converts the secret message to a bit string (ASCII or Unicode) and then into a sequence of integers.

FontCode embeds data into texts using minute perturbations to components of letters. This includes changing the width of strokes , adjusting the height of ascenders and descenders , and tightening or loosening the curves in serifs and the bowls of letters such as o, p, and b.

A kind of artificial-intelligence system known as a convolutional neural network can recognize these perturbations and help recover the embedded messages. The amount of information FontCode can hide is limited only by the number of letters on which it acts, the researchers say.

“Traditionally, a text document is meant to deliver information to the human only. Now we show that it can also deliver embedded information to digital intelligent systems, and the two parts of information delivery do not conflict,” Zheng says. “This is drastically different from existing methods such as QR codes or optical barcodes, which are meant to read by digital systems but occupy a certain area on the paper.”

To account for potential distortions to text due to concerns such as lighting, blurriness or camera angle, the scientists relied on the 1,700-year-old Chinese remainder theorem , which can help reconstruct missing information. This strategy could help recover hidden messages even when 25 percent of perturbations to texts are not recognized correctly.

Moreover, FontCode not only embeds messages in text, but can also encrypt them. For instance, users can agree on a private key that can specify the order in which hidden letters are read.

Although other methods exist to hide a message in text, FontCode’s inventors say their new technique is the first to work independent of document type. It can also retain secret information even when a document or an image with text is printed onto paper or converted to another file type, they say.

The researchers have filed a patent for FontCode with Columbia Technology Ventures . In addition, “we want to extend this technique to other languages,” Zheng says. “We demonstrated using English in this project; it might require a bit of thought to extend it to other languages—especially the logographic languages, such as Chinese.”

Hiding Information in Plain Text syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[chrissyrholmes]

The Top 10 Google Webfonts For Strong Header Text

Since webfont support is basically universal there’s no good reason to stick to the defaults. Google Webfonts is the largest source of free fonts with hundreds of typefaces to pick from.

Since page headers are the strongest elements they usually work best with custom fonts. However it can be tough whittling down the best choices, and that’s exactly why I wrote this post.

1. Montserrat

The first in my collection is Montserrat. This font can work for pretty much anything but I think it works incredibly well as header text.

I’ve used this for navigation text with all caps, customized letter spacing, along with many different font styles from thin to super thick. Montserrat fits the bill perfectly across the board and it’s one of the more universal fonts blending into anything from a tech blog to a funeral parlor website.

The font only weighs about 500 bytes using the default style so it’s incredibly light. And with so many different styles you can get a lot of different looks from this one family.

If you’re looking for a unique heading font try Montserrat. It probably won’t work for everyone but it’s a safe starting font that many designers love.

2. Merriweather

A much thicker serif alternative is Merriweather which I also like as a body font. This versatile typeface really looks great anywhere on your site and it’ll bring plenty of attention to your headers.

If you try Merriweather for a larger page heading I suggest using the bold or bold italic style. They are surprisingly clean but they probably need some letter spacing adjustments. Either way the style and darkness of the letters are super easy to follow.

When pairing this font I usually do a sans-serif body typeface. The contrasting styles create a natural divide between headers & body copy. Plus most people find sans-serif easier to read on average for body content.

But I see a lot of sites with serif headers and they all look great. Merriweather is a nice starting point for serif, but if you don’t like it you’ll find tons of alternatives in this post.

3. Josefin Sans

Modern and classy best describes Josefin Sans. It feels like a font straight from a 1950s jazz lounge, or maybe something you’d see on the front page of The New Yorker.

It does have a distinct curvy style and the thin letters save a lot of horizontal space. You can toy with all-caps or different letter spacings to create many unique styles all from this one font family.

Some sites just look better with thin heading fonts. If you’re looking for one to try I absolutely recommend Josefin Sans with its unique letter designs and its many bold/italic styles.

4. Arvo

One other serif font I really like is Arvo. This font has a lot of character which you’ll notice right away in the bolder styles.

I really feel like Arvo works best on blogs and digital magazines because the font grabs so much focus. It’s one of the strongest fonts in this list and the serif design grabs even more attention.

If you’re launching a magazine-style blog then Arvo can work well as a strong header. But if your blog works better with sans-serif fonts this can be too much. One alternative that’s a bit more subtle is Crete Round but it doesn’t have the same eye-catching appeal as Arvo.

5. Raleway

I’ve seen Raleway on many larger blogs and online magazines for its distinct style and large variety of font variations.

For big heading text I think a mid-level thickness works best so the letters don’t get too wide. Default letter spacing is great so every word is clearly legible.

One feature unique to Raleway is the “w” letter form. It crosses in the middle which looks like two “v”s stacked together. Some may like this, others won’t. But it’s definitely unique to Raleway so it’ll stand out in your page headers too.

6. Catamaran

One of the newer fonts I found recently is Catamaran. It comes with 9 font styles from thin to black and varying thicknesses inbetween.

What I like most about this font is the offbeat lettering. Each letter takes on a very unique style and you can see this in the bolder styles. When used in heading text these letters really shine and jump off the page.

Because the bold styles are so thick you should only use Catamaran in headers with larger font sizes. It can look OK at all sizes but Catamaran really feels like a thick header typeface.

7. PT Sans

PT Sans is soft with smooth edges and thin letters. For headers I only like the bold style of PT Sans because the “normal” style just feels way too thin.

I also prefer PT Sans for headers only since it just feels too soft for regular body text. But any PT Sans header is going to look amazingly clean and readable. This font actually has a sister named PT Serif that also works well.

Between the two, I personally prefer PT Sans. It has smoother edges than the serif version and I feel it just works better in page headings and especially for blogs.

8. Open Sans

Open Sans is small, versatile, and super clean. It deserves a spot in this collection because it’s a simple font and one of the fastest loading fonts from the entire Google Fonts library.

The majority of sans-serif fonts play well with any site. Plus you can use sans-serif fonts in both your header and body text making Open Sans a reasonable choice for the entire website. One alternative I really like is Muli which has a lot more character as a header font.

But Muli’s downside is the larger file size. Ultimately this is what makes Open Sans so great because slower sites don’t rank as well and they provide a worse UX all around.

9. Roboto Slab

For a strong serif header font you might try Roboto Slab and just see how it looks. The letters aren’t too thick and the tags that hang off don’t distract the reader.

I generally prefer Roboto Slab for headers instead of the sans-serif version called Roboto. The serif version just feels stronger and leaves a much bigger impression on the viewer.

Truth be told they’re both awesome and you can’t go wrong either way. They both support all the common unicode characters and they’re both amazing choices for your website headings.

10. Ubuntu

The free Ubuntu font can be used for practically anything from nav text to large headers and even body copy. It’s extremely versatile and it’s lightweight with a pretty fast load time.

Rounded edges on the letters make this feel sleek and modern. It’s also one of the few fonts that really can be used in multiple places on your site which can cut down the total number of fonts you need.

Ubuntu was designed back in 2010 so it’s been around for quite a while. Now that webfonts are much more common the Ubuntu family is widely used in web design.

Wrapping Up

Whenever I design a new site these 10 fonts are my go-to choices for headers. They’re much better than the stock OS defaults and your layout will really stand out from the others with these strong header fonts.

from Web Designing https://1stwebdesigner.com/top-google-webfonts-header-text/