U&lc Issue 28.2.1

Bullets What kind of a bullet doesn’t travel at high speeds and is completely non-violent? A typographer’s bullet, of course!

Letter Series: I & J The letters I and J follow each other in the alphabet and look a lot alike. So it comes as no surprise to discover that our ninth and tenth letters started out as the same character.

Featured Designer: Ed Benguiat Ed Benguiat loves to draw letters. When he’s not creating a new typeface, he can usually be found working on a piece of hand-lettering or a logo design for one of his hundreds of clients.

Dingbats & Ornaments Setting type means selecting and arranging groups of characters, but not all of those characters have to be part of the alphabet.

Point Sizes What’s the point of a point system in which 24 points doesn’t always equal 24 points? It’s not pointless, but it does require some explanation!

Fractions Can you find the fractions on your keyboard? If not, you’re not alone. Yet fractions appear fairly often in copy, so what’s a person to do? It’s too frustrating by half!

Lost In A Sea Of Type, Part 2 And now for Part 2 – more tips on how to navigate the vast sea of available typefaces and find the right ones for your project.

Type and Color When you think of type, what colors come to mind? Black type on white paper, right? Don’t assume color and type don’t mix!

Lost In A Sea Of Type, Part 1 Decisions, decisions, decisions! One of the most challenging aspects of any design project is choosing the typefaces.

Visual Alignment When it comes to typographic alignment, the mathematical approach to design doesn’t apply: it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

Letter Series: K Some letters are slaves to fashion. They’ll change their images for any number of reasons: to satisfy the whim of some snazzy new writing utensil, or even because they’ve taken up with a different language.

Letter Series: L Where did this useful L originate? The Egyptian equivalent of our L was first represented by the image of a lion.

Letter Series: M Historians tell us that our current M started out as the Egyptian hieroglyph for “owl.”.

Letter Series: N The early form of the N was always closely associated with water.

Letter Series: O Have you ever noticed that when you say O, your mouth makes the shape of an O? This observation has sparked some charming imaginings about the letter’s origins, but the true story revolves around a different feature altogether.

Letter Series: P New words are being invented all the time to keep up with changes in technology and daily life. This may have been one of the reasons the Phoenicians came up with the innovative notion of a phonetic alphabet.

Book Rview: Making Digital Type Look Good “Typography is entirely about the business of detailing,” writes Bob Gordon, and he practices what he preaches in this attractive and well-designed book.

The nature of the type world keeps changing. And any online publication is, by definition, about change. U&lc Online began life as an online companion to U&lc, ITC’s award-winning magazine; from here on in, it will begin a new life, in a new format, as ITC’s online voice. Expect the unexpected. U&lc Online is ITC’s international journal of graphic design and digital media. U&lc Online needs no subscription; it’s part of the ITC web site, itcfonts.com. To read U&lc Online, just bookmark this page and check it out every month.