Will Work For Golf
By David Golding
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I love golf, a lot. And this summer I’ve done more of it than ever, and I still feel deprived. You see, at $40 a round, it can add up quickly for a freelance developer like myself. I’ve decided to try to pull out all the stops and hunt down for a trade agreement.
My Will Work for Golf page outlines the trade agreement I’m hoping somebody, somewhere will want to take advantage of.
Ever Wonder What the Mass Market Paperback Font Is?
By David Golding
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Ever since I began to get serious about reading, which for me was at about ten years old, I’ve been reading paperback novels. I love a good read, but I love even more a cheap read, which has been made possible with Wal-Mart and Amazon (some books sell for one cent on Amazon! Can’t beat that). Also, ever since I began to get serious about design, I always wondered what fonts were being used. Looking at movie posters, logos, books, magazines, wherever, I’ve asked the question, “I wonder what that font is?” Little wonder, then, that I’ve asked that question of those paperback books.
With the advent of online self-publishing like Lulu.com, lots of people ask me how to make their books look identical to what you buy off the bookshelf. So I owe it to them, and to you, to pass along the info.
Online Font Identifier (or, Font Finder) Tools
The What The Font? tool is absolutely amazing. You upload an image (or reference the URL of an image already online) and it will analyze the characters for you and supply a list of possible candidates. I recommend this tool for most font finding needs. However, I found that it lacked seriously in finding the typeface of paperbacks. So I moved on to Linotype’s Font Identifier tool. This one asks you several questions about the qualities and characteristics of the typeface you’re trying to identify. These questions narrow down the pool of possible fonts, making it easier to identify the typeface. Well, this tool nailed it on the head.
And the font is…
Times Ten LT. There you go. Next time you want to print up your own paperback, use Times Ten (not Times New Roman or Times, but “Times Ten”; it’s available from Linotype) and folks will feel right at home when they read it with the rest of their NY Times bestsellers.
Important Redesign Considerations
By David Golding
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Sometimes it’s essential to redesign your web site. After two years of a red-black color scheme, I was getting a little bored, and so, if for no other reason, I felt the need to redo the look. What you’re looking at is a new design that, I hope, will accomplish the new objectives I have for this business.
Step one was to find a color scheme that I liked. Blues and grays are great for anything that needs a professional look and feel. I didn’t want it to be too mundane in that case, so I brought in a darker blue, no gray, and a somewhat florescent green to the palette. I wanted a new logo, so I created a metallic insignia, something like what you might see on a car, but with some color brightness to it.
The last step was to minimize content. I’ve become a convert of minimal content. I have noticed that my very favorite web sites have little content to sift through. Take, for example apple.com. These guys have one of the best home pages on the net, and it is incredibly minimal in its copy. However, run a search on Google for the site (site:apple.com) and you’ll find thousands of indexed web pages. So, like I believe we ought to do in government and in business, I cut the fat and trimmed it down to a couple paragraphs. I placed the contact form right there on the home page, and the portfolio as well. It’s all there in one quick glance. Then, using Ajax, I made the form and the portfolio accessible without being taken to another page.
All in all, I think it works. Hope some of these steps I took on this site might be useful for whatever your project might be.
