FlashBrighton: Practical Typography October 6, 2009

This session will offer practical insights into typography, dispel some of the myths that have grown up around the subject and touch on terminology, grids, readability & how to pick the fonts. Aegir Hallmundur is a freelance designer and typographer living & working in Brighton.
It had been a quiet Tuesday afternoon in A&E before the ambulance arrived. It screamed into the bay, sirens blaring, and its two paramedics were soon clattering open the building's swing doors and rushing in with their patient: a bleeding & unconscious website, strapped firmly to a trolley.

'Get the font specialist!' bellowed the lead medic. Hearing the call, Dr. Aegir Hallmundur ran into the resuscitation room, followed by a phalanx of nurses.

'Unknown website in an RTA: the server she was on crashed' the medic continued breathlessly. 'She's sustained multiple injuries: several broken links, a compound corruption of the head tag plus a seriously severed database connection. She's lost a lot of content. Plus she's no metadata: we've no idea what font type she has.'

Dr. Hallmundur looked gravely down at his ward. 'Unknown font type eh? OK, Courier, run and get me 12 litres of Times New Roman. That's the default, it'll keep her alive for now. Georgia, you suture that severed database connection. Gill, I want you to go through the medical records, find this website's metadata and write them all down for the nurse. We must have her CSS details, if we don't find her font type quickly she'll end up ugly & scarred. Picking the right font for the right design is crucial, it must be attractive, appropriate and readable. Arial, once we get that metadata let's get this website into a grid scan, so we can rebuild her layout. I... ah good, the Courier's back with the Times New Roman, let's get the patient on a drip with it pronto!'

Dr. Hallmundur glanced up at the clock. 'It's 5.38pm, I want this patient sewn up, with the right fonts and up on the ward in an hour. At 7pm, Tuesday 6th October I will lead an inspection at The Werks ward and I expect you all to be there, to review our work together.'

'Now let's sort these fonts out!'

Official Website: http://flashbrighton.org