Font ❤️ Friday and Other Designery Things #15

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While researching a seasonal font (yup, you guessed it…Halloween) for a new project, I came across this playful font. Kablammo (yes, that’s the font name!):

Created within the Vectro Type Foundry, Kablammo is described as the dancing font from outer space. It was inspired by toys and cartoons of the 80s and 90s plus the Memphis design movement.

You could ramp up the colours and present it in a fun way. I reckon you could even use it as a less spooky but still fun Halloweeny font (in case you get a last-minute design request!). Read more about its creation here. Ready to buy? No need, as it’s free – download from Google fonts. Groove is in the heart!

Bonus - check out the fun emojis within the font set, they made me smile.

FONTS

Spooky, stylish scripts
Well in case that client wants a traditional spooktacular font, you can design a spooky graphic using a few fonts in the Adobe collection. If you’re not with Adobe, try Google fonts especially the Creepster font – very Herman Munster.

Extra, extra, read all about it
Discover news stories on type from around the world. Fontstand is a website created and curated by design journalists and editors. As well as reading the stories behind the font, you can buy and try - they partner up with very cool type foundries.

A quick font history
This article ‘Where do fonts come from?’ has a very quick overview of the start of fonts. It covers font right from the bible up to AI today. It also covers the unfair payment to some typeface designers. It’s a similar story to Carolyn Davidson who designed the Nike logo. But there are changes to make it better and fairer. Have a quick read here.

DESIGNERY THINGS

Adobe to the Max
AI is everywhere but there are still humans behind it. Even though companies like Adobe are bringing out more and more tools to make our designing lives easier, we’re still the ones in control. Well, for now anyway (I say to my children… The Terminator is coming… cue rolled eyes). Adobe Max had their annual conference this October. A keynote that stood out for me was from Aaron Draplin. He created for clients (made a tonne of money and paid his debts) but also created designs he loved for himself and sold them too! No fancy business just him and his wife selling his book. They went on a tour and sold them out of a truck in 2017. Legend!
Watch the sessions from Adobe Max here.

Tiny masterpieces to the big screen
I went to a conference for copywriters last week – #CopyConX. Eh? Why? Well, thanks to the lovely Nikki, I had a ticket to attend. It was for copywriters, but the talks were relevant to any creative business. Of course, I was looking at fonts, the images, branding and all the visuals. One presentation that really stood out was by Tiffany Markman, who used visual artist Tatsuya Tanaka to illustrate her talk. Tatsuya specialises in miniature art using everyday objects. Very clever and I love how they were used in the presentation slides. Check out his tiny but mighty works.

A bonus Friday funny… copywriter Dave Harland closed the day with his talk on injecting humour into your copy. He highlighted an estate agent Lesley Hooks who has fun with her house descriptions:

FREELANCING

Contract Killer
No, no Halloween funnies here. Just a reminder to make sure your work is covered by contracts. I have to hold my hands up as I have a few retainer clients with a rolling verbal agreement (naughty!). But whenever I get a new client, I send out a contract and non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
Have a look here at this very reasonably priced design contract template by Andy Clark.

Client nightmares
We’ve all been there – the client from another planet! We think “is it me – have I done something to provoke this?” Well, it’s most probably not you. This spooky article from Creative Boom on frightful clients nails it. Read it here.

#FONTLOVEFRIDAY

October is Black History Month in the UK, and a few people actually asked me why I didn’t post about it. Well, every month/day is black history. Some companies use it to promote black people but then forget about it for the rest for the year. The same happens with International Women’s Day and Pride Month. We should try to celebrate, remember everything, and include everyone every flipping day… although this won’t work for Bring Your Child to Work Day.

I’ll end with a note by author Maya Angelou on creativity.

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

No, AI is not going to replace you!

Go create - Happy Friday people!

Ange 🌈

Thanks for reading!

I specialise in both print and digital graphic design. If you are interested in learning more about me and my services, take a look here.

*designery – I have made up this word.

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