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With so many options out there, font licensing can feel like a headache! But it’s critical to understand it before choosing a typeface. That’s why I’m thrilled to welcome Joyce Ketterer, CEO of Darden Studio and expert on font licensing, to help us untangle it all.

We discuss

Among answering listener questions, we discuss:

The most common commercial font license models and how to choose the right one. The differences between open-source fonts and commercial options. Whether using Google Fonts or Adobe Fonts is really safe What designers and developers need to know before selecting a font. The risks of skipping proper font licensing — and how to avoid them.

Talking Points:

06:34 – Fonts Are Licensed, Not Purchased
08:45 – Restrictions on System Fonts
12:08 – Adobe Fonts and Licensing Challenges
14:42 – Using Fonts for Logos and Glyphs
18:07 – Software vs. Intellectual Property Licensing Models
26:36 – Free vs. Licensed Fonts
30:08 – Why Foundries Price Fonts for Companies
39:01 – Perpetual vs. Timed Licenses
44:17 – Licensing Fonts for Apps, Websites, and E-books
56:07 – Embedding Fonts in PDFs
58:19 – Contacting Foundries for Guidance

📝 Show notes and comment here:

https://pimpmytype.com/talk09

📞 Book your typographic coaching call:

https://pimpmytype.com/coaching-call

Web accessibility is an afterthought or a technical thing for many designers. At least I saw it that way before I embarked on my accessibility journey. But It’s during the design process when crucial decisions are made – and these go a long way! So to give designers some practical tips, I invited web accessibility expert Mina Nabinger to join me in a fun talk.

We discuss

What you should pay attention to as a designer, covering things like:

• Why accessibility matters and is not just a checklist,
• The legal landscape, especially in the EU,
• the most critical issues for visual designers,
• How much accessibility is needed vs. nice to have, and
• Balancing accessibility with aesthetics.

Talking Points:

04:09 – Mina’s Background in Accessibility
06:47 – Why Accessibility Matters
08:22 – Relevance of Accessibility for Visual Designers
10:52 – Top Accessibility Issues in Visual Design
13:34 – Accessibility as a Continuous Process, Not a Checklist
15:05 – Critical Issues in Visual Design Accessibility
21:42 – Legal Landscape of Accessibility in the EU
26:08 – Icon Buttons Without Labels
29:24 – Challenges with Moving Images and GIFs
32:11 – Links in Paragraphs and Touch Targets
37:50 – Outdated Icons: Do They Still Work?
40:25 – Writing Accessible Call–to–Action Buttons
43:26 – How Much Accessibility is Needed vs. Nice to Have?
47:05 – Balancing Accessibility with Aesthetics
50:48 – Screen Resolution and Text Size for Accessibility
56:00 – Final tips for visual designers

📝 Show notes and comment here:

https://pimpmytype.com/talk08

📞 Book your typographic coaching call:

https://pimpmytype.com/coaching-call

Are the fonts you pick actually any good? And I don’t mean if they fit the topic or the aesthetics of your project. I mean the quality of the actual font. Is it well-made? To help us with that, I invited type designer Alanna Munro.

You will learn:

• How Alanna combined a passion for gaming with type design.
• The problem with marketplaces
• The three most important things to check if it's a quality letterform
• About optical illusions and type design
• What curve speed is
• The difference between a font and a typeface
• We assess five fonts, going from bad 😕 to horrible 😱

Alanna Munro is an independent type design and lettering artist from Vancouver, Canada. To me, her typefaces incorporate something playful while never losing their utilitarian purpose. She caught my attention with her type design livestreams on Twitch and recently with her Letter Nerd publication. In a little 16-page booklet, Alanna gives you a quick overview on how to design and spot if it's a quality letter.

📝 See the examples and show notes here:

https://pimpmytype.com/talk07/

📞 Book your typographic coaching call:

https://pimpmytype.com/coaching

01:44 – Welcome, Alanna Munro
05:39 – Type design for video games
09:06 – What’s a good font?
18:10 – Three most important things to check
24:03 – Optical illusions in type design
29:30 – Bad font #1
36:03 – Bad font #2
40:57 – Bad font #3
43:55 – Bad font #4
46:06 – Bad font #5 (worst!)
47:42 – Difference between font and typeface
49:19 – Final tips
53:28 – Closing

What makes an accessible typeface? And how can we improve typography in regard to web accessibility?

To answer this and other questions, I invited type designer Eleni Beveratou, creative director at Dalton Maag.

We discuss:

🔵 The difference between legibility and readability

🔵 What makes an accessible typeface?

🔵 If Arial and Comic Sans are really superior?

🔵 If we should use designated fonts for dyslexic people in our designs more often?

🔵 How you can mess up the most accessible typeface by using it inaccurately.

🔵 If you should avoid italics or centered text?

🔵 And, if ligatures are helpful or can be problematic?

This was recorded as a fun an easy-going live stream on YouTube. If you want so see the visuals, maybe check out the video as well, but I think for the most part you will be good to follow along.

📝 All Show Notes

https://pimpmytype.com/talk06

📞 Book your Typographic coaching call

Talking Points:

0:03:00 Why Eleni got interesting in Accessibility
0:05:00 Accessibility is not only for the blind
0:09:10 How reading works
0:12:30 Accessibility is Legibility, Readability, Likability
0:17:00 What makes an accessible typeface?
0:28:15 Sans-Serif vs. Serif fonts
0:35:00 Are accessible fonts always the same?
0:42:45 Should we avoid very expressive fonts?
0:46:45 Fonts for dyslexia
1:02:50 Making accessible fonts inaccessible
1:07:15 Text Contrast: Light on Dark, Dark on Light
1:14:00 Use italic text sparingly
1:16:50 Tracking fonts
1:21:00 Avoid centered text
1:25:35 Are ligatures problematic or helpful?
1:30:00 Be careful with Guidelines
1:32:00 Closing

Typography  for print can be intimidating to many designers, especially when you  focus on digital mostly. This is why I invited specialist Diana Varma to  share her knowledge of what to pay attention to when dealing with type  for print.  You will learn: 🤩 The advantages of print over digital.

🤩 The differences between readability and legibility.
🤯 The right font sizes & smallest type size you can print (blew my mind).
🤩 How to avoid beginners mistakes in prepress.
🤩 How to best print gray text?
🤩 Accessibility is also a topic that comes up quite a lot during this talk.

Talking Points
02:19 Greetings to Diana Varma
06:09 How Diana’s podcast got started
09:13 Advantages of print typography
14:35 Ideas for digital/analog hybrids
17:02 Type choice for long reading formats in print
22:12 On point and pixel sizes
26:00 Basic tips for print beginners
33:04 How to best print gray text
36:59 Knowing the fundamentals to break the rules
39:07 What fascinates Diana about typography?
41:11 Why Diana prefers Comic Sans over Papyrus
43:08 Easter eggs on Diana’s website

📝 All Show Notes + Video of the talk

🎙️ Diana’s Podcast Talk Paper Scissors

▶️ Video: How to choose a good typeface for body text 

📞 Book your Typographic coaching call

In the second part of the two part conversation with Nadine Chahine, type designer and CEO of I Love Typography, we dig into the world of distributing typefaces. I asked Nadine, what motivated her in this highly competitive market to start a marketplace for fonts?

We dig into:

🤔 How the landscape for licensing typefaces was 15 years ago, and how it is today,
🤔 Explain the imbalance in the type design industry with a monopoly on one side, and
🤔 What I Love Typography does differently.

💌 Newsletter with weekly font recommendations
📝 Show notes
🛍️ Browse Fonts on I Love Typography

In this first of the two part conversation with Nadine Chahine, type designer and CEO of I Love Typography, we dig into Arabic type design, typography and type design in general. 

Browse Fonts on I Love Typography

💌 Newsletter with weekly font recommendations

Talking Points:

02:15 Greeting to Nadine Chahine
03:32 How Nadine discovered typography
06:43 The horrible state of Arabic typefaces in the 90ies
09:04 Why Arabic typography was neglected for so long
11:57 A typeface is a series of conversations
17:02 Why knowing about type is so helpful for everyone
15:07 A good typeface is not modular
18:57 Type as an ingredient
22:23 Learning about type is easy

Designer, tinkerer and typographer Jason Pamental joins me to chat about what creative possibilities variable fonts bring. We also dive into web font performance, how to improve loading speed with practical tips, and why this all will become obsolete in the nearer future.

From this easy going conversation, you’ll learn:

➡️ What’s different with typography for screen design.

➡️ About the most common typographic challenges on the web.

➡️ What effect bad web typography has on people.

➡️ About the adoption of variable fonts in 2022.

😂 A brilliant answer to my mean closing question, “Comic Sans or Papyrus?”. 

💌 Newsletter with weekly font recommendations

https://pimpmytype.com/newsletter

Talking points:

00:00 – Introduction

03:26 – Greeting to Jason Pamental

06:40 – Load web fonts correctly, style fallback fonts

11:07 – How web typography is different

16:07 – Variable Fonts in a nutshell

18:15 – Adoption of Variable Fonts in 2022

25:31 – How fonts change the personality of a UI

29:34 – Variable Fonts and optical size

33:55 – Jason’s job as a principle designer at chewy.com

36:12 – Creative possibilities with Variable Fonts

39:53 – Improving font loading performance

46:19 – Progressive font downloading in the future

49:50 – Rapid Round of questions

53:00 – Goodbye

🔗 Links, quotables, and performance tips:

https://pimpmytype.com/talk03

💌 Your feedback & guest suggestions:

oliver@pimpmytype.com

I am joined by the lovely author and typography professor Indra Kupferschmid to chat about type classification and combining typefaces. We cover why the old systems don’t work, and touch on a font matrix. It’s a brilliant way by Indra, that tells you how to describe typefaces differently, and helps in making better decision in pairing them.

Besides that, Indra also shares:

➡️ how calligraphy taught her why letter forms change when using different writing tools.
➡️ that her student’s don’t feel that intimidated by combining fonts.
➡️ why popular typefaces like Roboto and Inter work so well and still might stick around for some years.

Talking points:

00:00 – Introduction
04:36 – Greeting to Indra Kupferschmid
05:36 – Avoid flipped apostrophes (should look like a 9)
08:01 – Consistent typography makes text easier to understand
11:44 – Categorizing typefaces
16:23 – About historic type classifications
20:07 – Why the old type classification models don’t work
22:31 – Filtering Fonts to make it easier to pick one
25:55 – Filtering based on features
27:54 – Terminology is the biggest problem, better describe what you see
28:59 – The Font Matrix
38:04 – Creating contrast
39:50 – Don’t use too light typefaces for body text
43:23 – Why are Roboto and Inter so popular for UI design?
48:25 – Why there are so little serif typefaces on screen?
53:59 – Are more typefaces now shown than images?
56:03 – Rapid Round of questions
58:32 – Goodbye

🤩 Pairing Typefaces Like a Pro, Online Course:
https://pimpmytype.com/course

🔗 Visuals, Links, and quotables to this episode:
https://pimpmytype.com/talk02

I’m joined by wonderful José Scaglione. He is a type designer, lecturer, and co-founder of the high renown foundry TypeTogether, which is behind popular typefaces like Bree or Adelle. They worked with top brands, like Apple and Google, where they also contributed serif typefaces for screen rendering. And this is why I invited José – to discuss with him the predominance of sans-serif in user interfaces and screen design more broadly.

We speak about, why it might be a legacy issue, and that moving out of your comfort zone can be very rewarding. It brings us to legibility, readability, and accessibility. José also shares how he experienced the switch from static fonts to variable fonts as a type designer and foundry. If you struggle with pairing typefaces, this episode also has some tips for you.

Talking points:
00:28 Introduction
02:39 Greeting to José Scaglione
03:36 Is the font in the TypeTogether logo overused?
06:01 Don’t use tabular figures on business cards
07:27 Benefits of learning about typography
09:49 Why is sans-serif dominant in UIs?
13:02 Legibility, regardless of sans or serif
15:34 Why are neo-grotesques so popular?
17:08 Arguments against neutrality & Helvetica
18:57 Portada: A serif typeface for UI design
20:39 Complexity of printing vs screen
24:30 Variable fonts and optical sizing
27:57 Variable fonts and file size
29:37 Do you need the design space of VF?
31:31 Belarius: Slab serifs in UI design
35:40 Accessibility and typography
42:38 Advice for typography newbies
43:20 Tips on pairing typefaces
45:26 Rapid Round of questions
47:11 Goodbye
48:18 Summary

Visuals, quotes, and links:
https://pimpmytype.com/talk01

Hello and welcome Typography enthusiast to Pimp my Type as a podcast! Let me take a short moment to introduce myself and this podcast here. 

My name is Oliver Schöndorfer, UI designer and typographer and there to help you to boost your designs with great typography. I share what I have learned in 15 years hands-on experience on my blog, weekly newsletter, and YouTube Channel.

Since typography is a very visual medium, why doing a podcast at all? Well, after 18 months doing the YouTube Channel I wanted to have guests on the show, to pick their brain and broaden my perspective. I use their advice in videos, but I thought the whole conversation better fits in an Audio format. This is why this podcast exits. It will be occasional interviews with experts in the field, the main content and visual tutorials and tips will still be on YouTube.

Find articles, the YouTube Channel, and my weekly newsletter with a hand-picked font recommendation on pimpmytype.com.