History of Fonts

If you’ve read this blog for more than a year or two, you’ve learned that I have a certain love… and hate for specific fonts.  (Here are some of my past posts on fonts) (Go here to catch up on some of my “I loath Algerian font” themed posts which got me sited in the Algerian Font’s wiki page as a font hate site… Ha! I’m such a nerd) Every now an again, I’ll find a very interesting video or blog about fonts. When designing (something we all do – every time we hang a sign on a door for parents to read), paying attention to the font is important. Some fonts are better designed for big signs, others for easy reading text. Using the wrong font in some situations communicates something different than what you’re trying to say with your font. I know, for some of you this sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.

My good friend Jonathan Cliff knows of my love of fonts and sends me links all the time. Here’s a really interesting video on the history of fonts.. why they’re called fonts, why we call them “upper case” and “lower case” and even where they term italics came from. However, there’s a big chunk of the video that deals with the infamous Comic Sans font, where it came from and why so many people hate it.

Enjoy!

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