U&lc Issue: 29.1.1

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.

Swash & Alternate Characters For a touch of elegance and visual flair, try swash characters. These highly decorative letters can add beauty and visual focus to a design when used correctly – but don’t fall into a common type novice’s trap!

Letter Series: Z Is this a dagger which I see before me? No, but it might be an early form of the letter Z. Nowadays we can’t imagine a parade of letters without a Z bringing up the rear, but our 26th letter almost never made it into the alphabet at all.

Initial Fonts Most fonts don’t reveal their full flavor until you set them in words and sentences, but others need to be savored in small bites – one letter at a time. Learn about initial fonts, an often-overlooked source of decorative letters that can stand on their own.

Letter Series: X We may not need the X, but we have it nonetheless. Though the origins of this letter are actually somewhat “fishy,” the X made its way into our alphabet by way of the usual suspects: the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans.

Logotypes The, for, and, of, to – when you use logotypes, these tiny little words can add sizable flair to your work. There may even be logotypes hidden in fonts you already have, and they’re well worth looking for.

Letter Series: U, V, W & Y That Phoenician “waw” is at it again – this time, we learn how that versatile symbol evolved over many centuries and cultures into our U, V, W, and Y.

Ligatures, Part 2 More on ligatures, those special multi-letter characters that are designed to add visual interest to your work. In Part 2 we look at decorative ligatures, which can give ordinary text a sense of elegance, tradition, or just plain fun.

Letter Series: T T marks the spot – that doesn’t sound quite right, does it? But, in fact, it was the early mark X, used by illiterate folk to sign their names millenia ago, that ultimately became our T.

Featured Designer: Erik Spiekermann The kid who played with a printing press grew up to have a varied and prolific career as a type designer and successful author: now Erik Spiekermann, the self-described “information architect,” is a force to be reckoned with in the world of design and typography.

Ligatures, Part I Like peanut butter and jelly, there are some letters that just work better when you put them together. That’s the thinking behind ligatures, special characters that combine certain letter pairs (or sometimes threesomes) that look better when designed as a unit. Learn what ligatures are and how to use them, in the first of a two-part series.

Letter Series: S Twists, turns, and reverses – these characterize both the form and history of the letter S. Follow the curving trail of its evolution from the ancient Egyptians to the present day.

Featured Designer: Olivera Stojadinovic Calligraphy and typeface design are two very different lettering arts, but designer Olivera Stojadinovic combines them with skill and grace. Her Cyrillic and Latin typefaces have an authentic brushstroke quality.

Letter Series: R When it comes to grace and subtlety, the R reigns supreme. From its earliest form as a representation of the human head, the R has undergone an “about-face” before evolving into its current, balanced shape.

Word Spacing For truly professional-quality typesetting, it’s not just the words themselves you have to get right – it’s the space between the words. This introduction to word spacing will help you improve the color, texture and readability of the type you set.

Letter Series: Q Monkey see, monkey Q – the typographic ancestor of our letter Q may have swung from a few trees before settling into its modern form. And the Greeks dropped the character entirely, so it’s the Etruscans we have to thank for our seventeenth letter.

Accents Have you ever needed to set an accented character in copy but couldn’t find it on your keyboard? If these characters leave you feeling naïve, you’re not alone.