DesignByNumbers

As designers there are a couple of questions that constantly pop up? “Hey, what font is that in?” and “What will it look like with a different font?” Sometimes the answer is easy, but not always. Here are two excellent type tools online that can help answer these questions in a pinch.

“Hey, what font is that in?” - http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

This website allows you upload a scan or point to the url of a type sample, and after an initial analysis of the image it prompts you to verify the letters it thinks it has found in your sample. After that, it returns a list of possible matches, with visual samples, and links to font foundries to allow you to easily purchase the font in question.

I have yet to stump it.

“What will it look like with a different font?”  - http://typetester.maratz.com

This handy tool uses a self-explanatory interface that lets you define up to three different CSS styles. It displays columns of the three type styles in various permutations that allow you to visually compare the changes you make to the specs.

A particularly welcome feature is a drop down list containing web-safe, and operating-system-specific lists of the default installed fonts so that you can quickly pick appropriate typefaces for your web project.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 2:36 pm and is filed under DesignbyNumbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.