Type fonts have fascinated me ever since I learned to read via the daily newspaper ages ago. (True story.) Seeing words neatly arranged on a page always causes my heart to flutter. This is why I love books. (Well, that’s one reason why I love them.) Beautiful, clean-looking fonts always make me think of words being taken seriously. Font design is truly an art form.
And don’t get me started on cover fonts. I love when a designer uses a font that fits the theme of a book or some other aspect of it.
Out right now (cover by Alison Hunt)
Coming this June (cover designer—Dana Li; illustrator—Agata Wierzbicka)
Coming this October (not sure who the cover designer is, but the illustrator is Alice Brereton)
When I took calligraphy as part of my art studies in high school (yep, totally dates me), I had vague hopes of someday creating a beautiful font. Still waiting on that score. In the meantime, I can appreciate the beautiful fonts created by others. (And yes, I know—beauty is subjective.)
Duckbite Swash by Angie Makes
Alex Brush by TypeSETit
Reis by Marcelo Reis Melo
Girly Alphabet (yes, that is a thing)
Henry (um, he’s still working on this one)
Random photos that have nothing to do with fonts. Photo top left is a Squeezamal™. Photo top right shows sidewalk art (not drawn by me) outside my door that sort of matches the Squeezamal. Last but not least, a photo of the current occupant of my living room.
What covers or fonts have caught your eye recently? As you consider that, Andy of Thinkulum, come on down. You are the winner of The Contract between heaven and earth by John Howell and Gwen Plano! Comment below to confirm.
Duckbite Swash calligraphy font image fround at myfonts.com. Alex Brush found at naldzgraphics.net. Reis free font found at pesede.com. Girly Alphabet Font from designtrends.com. Other photos by L. Marie. Squeezamals™ are a product of Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company.
El Space--The Blog of L. Marie 
I wasn’t aware of your fascination with fonts, L. Marie. I do enjoy playing around with them too. Tell Henry to keep working on his…I like it!
I love a good font collection, Jill. The one I have on this computer is okay. I could stand to download a few more. 😊
Are there websites you visit to find fonts? At work we use Google Fonts and occasionally Font Squirrel, since we’re looking for free ones that are licensed for ebook use.
I haven’t investigated too many websites directly. My process was to look for “beautiful fonts” and then discover who designed them and whether they were free or had to be purchased. But I’m glad to know about these options.
Have to admit that I never gave much conscious thought to fonts. I search for ones I find appealing at the time. One thing I don’t get is the hate for Comic Sans. Why is that one treated like a joke?
I use Comic Sans in card making a lot. I don’t understand the hate either. Do they think it is too basic?
They say it’s unprofessional. I guess some people used it in resumes and the criticism spread across the Internet. It evolved to blind hate at some point.
Oh my goodness! Though I wouldn’t have chosen to use it for that purpose, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be used as a resume font. It is a legitimate font!
I used to Comic Sans in my emails at work. I think it’s a pleasant, friendly font, but, yeah, too casual for resumes, business correspondence.
I used to use Comic Sans a ton back in the day. I liked the casualness of it and yes the friendliness. A graphic artist could do more with it as a resume font than others, probably.
I usually visit here and remain quiet (why do I stay quiet?) but I am totally fascinated by fonts… I love them. I so enjoyed this post, L. Marie. One of my favorite fonts is Zapfino. Found it on a photo editing site and used it for the watermark on my photos. They dropped it from the font list… 😦 Duckbite Swash makes my heart flutter and I like Alex Brush. I looked and found Zapfino years ago but I think I couldn’t figure out how to get it on the computer, find it, and use it. Maybe I need to try again. Henry ♥
So glad you visit regularly! Zapfino is quite beautiful! I found this link to a download: https://www.cufonfonts.com/font/zapfino
I would love to have Duckbite too, but I think it requires a purchase.
Thank you so much for the link. I used the link from above, myfonts, and I was happy to find it. It did require a purchase.
Oh man. Was that okay?
I had googled for fonts and found myfonts dot com before I commented here. I would have had to pay. I used your link for cufonfonts and it was a free download. I haven’t done it yet. Yes, all is good! I appreciate you sharing the links… 🙂
Yay!!! 😊
I like to mess around with fonts, but don’t know the names of the ones I like. When it comes to book covers I find that it is only if a font looks out of place that I notice it. Good design is seamless and draws me right in.
Ha! I know what you mean! I can’t help noticing trends in book covers, particularly with fonts. Some I’ve liked and some I haven’t liked. But I’m usually drawn to the font.
You can upload an image of the font to certain websites that’ll try to identify it for you. One example is whatfontis.com. Another site that gives you a few different ways to identify a font is identifont.com.
Thanks for the info. I wasn’t aware of this, but I can see how it’s useful.
Fonts fascinate me because they are an art form, but I don’t use a wide range. This week I remember using TImes New Roman (my old standby), Chancery, and Helvetica. I notice fonts on books if they are especially fitting or. like Ally, if they are wrong. I’ll have to look up Alex Brush by TypeSETit, which I find appealing.
Great post, L. Marie!
Thank you, Marian! 😊 I also use Times New Roman, mainly because it was required for papers I had to turn in. I use it for manuscripts as well. 😊 But if I make a card, I like to use a variety of fonts. But my printer is old. It substitutes some fonts.
Back in the day, I used Helvetica quite often. 😊
Thanks for the book, Linda!
I saw a book in Half Price Books the other day by Lee Suttey called Sketching Type. It was about creating hand-drawn fonts. Maybe you could play around with that.
A while back I spent a lot of time looking for fonts I could use regularly in my documents. For a body font I settled on Muli, the closest free alternative I could find for Gotham, which I noticed in the Common Core Standards PDFs. Muli and Gotham are geometric but sans serif, and to me they convey a blend of reason and nurture. I haven’t quite decided on a heading font yet, but it’ll be a heavy slab font to convey a blend of nurture and solidity, like a weighted blanket.
I Googled Muli. Very nice!
I like your description of nurture and solidity! I know what you mean (especially the weighted blanket). Muli has that weightiness. Gotham is crisp and clean.
I love that Alex Brush font. I know it’s an ancient art, but I love cursive. I especially love the way the letter “L” looks in cursive, and it’s why I chose that type of font for my author name and used my first initial. Is that Alex Brush available in most programs. I may have to consider that for my next book. 😉
Here is a link to Alex Brush: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/alex-brush It is a lovely font, isn’t it?
I love a cursive font. Calligraphy was a fun class!
Thanks, L. <– Too bad I can't do a nice cursive L in this comment. 😉
I was thinking the same thing, Lori! WordPress is a bit limited font wise! 😊
How fascinating this post is and oh-so-many fonts to find. I tend toward the old standbys, mostly the ones Marian mentions in her comment. If I’m working on correspondence for some of my club work, I will play around a bit.
A very long time ago, VERY, we had a morning newspaper, afternoon, and late afternoon – and our usually house had them all! The Chicago Tribune, Daily News, Daily American, plus the local Maywood paper.
I worked on my high school newspaper, all four years. My senior year, I was the “make-up editor” of the Proviso Pageant. We published an 8 page newspaper, twice a week, long before computers when the galleys had to be physically taken to the printer and the paper then brought back to the school. All editors were required to do several editorials, feature articles and such. My job was to determine the font type, columns, and headlines. That school year was rather turbulent, with news stories often changing, the front page, in particular, needing to be changed at the last moment. It was one of the best experiences of my education.
I’m not surprised that you worked on your high school newspaper, Penny. Your writing is of a high caliber.
I remember the paste up days too. I worked on a newspaper also (but not the high school one; the one I worked on was for CETA). I was a production editor and had to paste up galleys. You came to know fonts very well back in the day. 😄 Nowadays, so many people are designing their own fonts!
Do you remember The Chicago Today newspaper? My parents used to get that one.
Thank you, L. Marie. I enjoyed doing, and appreciate hearing about your experiences with CETA. Yes. I do remember the Chicago Today. What a wealth of newspapers we had, didn’t we, and parents who fostered our reading them?
Yes! I remember when Chicago Today folded back in the 70s. My parents started getting the Chicago Sun-Times.
Ha ha!! Love the Fontcast! That was awesome, Nancy! 😊😊😊
I don’t see how they did this scene without cracking a smile! It was hilarious! Love the Font Face Off.
Brick is so adorable! That totally would have been me looking at the font! Thank you, Nancy! These were delightful!
OK . . . that’s enough Fontastic Clips for today!
They were fantastic!!!I didn’t realize The Middle had so many episodes about fonts! Classic! 😄😄😄😄
Go Henry! Kid has to start somewhere. 🙂 And yes, the importance of fonts to effective book covers is often underestimated.
Very true!
So, Lyn, what’s going on with you publishing wise? Do tell!
I like the way Henry spells his name. I like fonts too, used to play around with them a lot. These days I’m more focused on just being able to read (as in, I hate it when people send emails in a font size smaller than 11). Font is important to me when I’m buying/reading a book. Beautiful font does a lot to enhance my reading experience. I always look for the typesetter info. Not that I ever remember the info 😉 Great post, by the way! Happy Friday ❤️
Thanks, Marie! I know what you mean. This is why I don’t read anything on my phone for long.
I know a number of typesetters, so they’ll be glad to know that you appreciate their work.
Oh, indeed, please let them know that I really appreciate how they contribute to the pleasure of reading.
Will do!
Now that you mention it, I also notice fonts. The smoother and more rounded the font, the easier it is I find to read the text. Cursive font is a font I’ve always found hard reading. To me, colour and font go hand-in-hand especially when it comes to reading a book or blogs. If the font is too light or too garaish, it makes me not want to read all the way through and maybe not even read the piece at all.
Henry looked like he tried really hard. I think he knows he can try harder 😀 How cute to have a Hello Kitty balloon at home 😊
I love a smooth, rounded font too. I wish I could use more fonts in work documents. But I only use Times New Roman. If I make cards, I use more fonts.
The Hello Kitty balloon still looms in my living room. 😄
I love fonts too and wish it was easier to use them in WordPress – took me ages to discover that if I used one on my computer, no-one else actually saw it on theirs! 😂 I was thrilled a couple of years ago to discover there’s actually a font with the secret code in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Dancing Men. Now all I need is to find someone as nerd-ish as me so we can exchange secret coded messages… 😉
It looks like there’s a way to customize your WordPress fonts somewhat. Here’s the help article, in case you haven’t seen it: https://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-fonts/
😊
Oh, thanks for that! I shall investigate… 😀
I know what you mean!! I want to use better fonts on WP too.
I need to reread that story. I love secret messages.