Like last year, we decided to showcase another festive font. This year we've fallen in love with KingThings - Merry Christmas font.
 

Unfortunately, Mac users looking for a mac Christmas font cannot use KingThings Merry Christmas.

Free Download of KingThings Merry Christmas Font
Windows: kingthings-merry-christmas.zip (56.67 kb)

Author Website: http://www.kingthingsfonts.co.uk/

I wrote about a program called Printers Apprentice back in November 2007 since then Bryan, from Lose your Mind has been extremely busy added new features that make this program even better.

The latest release version 8.0 includes but not limited to, Vista Support, Multi-page Print Preview, Compare Fonts tab shows you multiple fonts at once using your own sample text and more...


You can read more here: http://www.loseyourmind.com/pa80.asp and as a special introductory rate, you can now get 20% off the RRP using this link: Special 20% off Printers Apprentice

One of the things I wanted to do with this website was to review not only fonts but tools also related to fonts and the graphic design industry.  You may have read my posts about Printers Apprentice and Virtual Font Folder

Well I've decided to create my own tool and decided it would be relevant to visitors of this website. Most people who use and install fonts will have used a graphic design package and most likely used CSS and (x)html. The tool is designed to convert RGB to HEX as well as converting HEX to RGB. I also have a handy tool to show you the Web Palette 216 which is recommended palette for web design. The website is www.rgbtohex.co.uk and would love to hear your opinions on it.

We all love to get something for free with no catch, well this is exactly that! 40+ Professional Standard fonts for zilch. You don't even need to sign up. Often free fonts are not professionally designed or suitable for professional printing. This isn't the case with these.

Take a look here:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/08/40-excellent-freefonts-for-professional-design/

This collection of fonts include:
District Thin
Greyscale Basic
Diavlo
Kontrapunkt

So in my last post I mentioned the film about a font, Helvetica. As promised, here is my opinion.

I was quite pleasantly surprised at how well this film / documentary was produced. After all creating over 80 minutes of documentary about a font must be quite a challenge. It has certainly been professionally done. They films in various parts of the world to talk to various industry experts and designers each explaining what the font means to them etc... There are a few people who have quite a "strange" character and at times felt like some of them where rambling just for the sake of it but on the whole all their opinions are all quite valid and their stories interesting.

It's quite an eye opener and shows just how powerful this font can be. I particular like the all the various scenes shown throughout, showing all the different companies and signs using this font type. It really does seem to be absolutely everywhere and it's still as refreshing as it was 50 years ago.

Overall I would recommend this, but only to people with more than just an interest in fonts / Helvetica.

Checkout http://www.helveticafilm.com/clips.html for some trailers.

It's been some time since we've reviewed which is disappointing and today I'm not actually reviewing anything again. This is more of a mention of something I'll shortly be reviewing once my DVD arrives.

Director's Statement

Why make a film about a typeface, let alone a feature documentary film about Helvetica? Because it's all around us. You've probably already seen Helvetica several times today. It might have told you which subway platform you needed, or tried to sell you investment services or vacation getaways in the ads in your morning paper. Maybe it gave you the latest headlines on television, or let you know whether to 'push' or 'pull' to open your office door.

Read more over at http://www.helveticafilm.com/

 

This article from CodingHorror.com is certainly worth a mention.

 

View the Article, Typography: Where Engineers and Designers Meet

ITC Out of the Fridge is a friendly, lively design that lends itself especially well to display applications. Best of all, it’s free with any Fonts.com purchase in December.

Virtual Font Folder enhances Windows by giving you another directory to install / remove fonts. This is great for designers and developers who may wish to isolate their fonts whilst working on a project.

Check out the full product description over at www.loseyourmind.com. Lose your Mind Development are a software house who specifically write font related tool.

With the festive season creeping up closer, I thought I'd do a nice season review of the font "Almonte Snow". Almonte Snow has been created by Ray Larabie, a well know creator of some quality fonts. 

Use this font with a bit of color and you'll instantly get recognisable festive text. The only criticism I can make about this font is the fact it doesn't have any lower case letter.

 

Free Download of Almonte Font
Windows: almosnow.zip (30.67 kb)
Mac: almonte_snow.sit (168.07 kb)