What are we going to do about PowerPoint?
This is an ongoing problem. I have a heck of a time getting my students to make a professional presentation they can use for their portfolio. Designers need to be able to make a presentation to their...
View ArticleThe overwhelming urge to be radical…
When people ask, “why Radiqx?” I give them the usual shtick about it means radical, back to the roots, basic Kingdom membership, serving the King. I don’t usually mention I chose the name because I’m...
View ArticleWeb 2 Digital Bible: Glo from Zondervan
I ran across this in my Christian professionals group at Linked In this morning. It is a visually exciting presentation to be sure. My only question is: Can it really be used? I saw no place to add...
View ArticleThe new paradigm of free publishing: free whitepaper
Things have really changed—free whitepaper. Above is a link to a free PDF about how to publish your book for free in print, downloadable PDF, ePUB on iBooks and NookBooks, Kindle book, and various...
View Article1st Proof: Fontographer: Practical Font Design For Graphic Designers
This is the new book on Fontographer 5.1. It’s has been great fun to go back to my roots, as it were and relearn the program that started me in font design. Fontographer is the app that started graphic...
View ArticleFont families, font widths, italics, and obliques
Font families Over the years, font design has developed groups of fonts that are obviously variants of the same basic font. They are called font families. These families can have differences in weight...
View ArticleBulleted lists are highly attractive to readers
Use bulleted lists The typographic use of bullets and dingbats is conceptually unknown to typists. Lists are at the core of non-fiction and blog typography. Bulleted lists are an extremely effective...
View ArticleGraphics In InDesign: an excerpt from “Practical Professional Self Publishing...
This is the first portion of the new Practical Professional Self Publishing Handbook due out before summer this year. InDesign is the true replacement for FreeHand Many designers are still upset that...
View ArticleWhat we need in a font family for books
As typographers and book designers, we need a minimum three-font family—regular, italic, and bold: Italic is necessary for periodical names and emphasis. Bold is used for proper names and headers. As...
View ArticleChoosing a companion sans for your body copy
Use a companion font for the heads & subheads This font family needs to be carefully chosen. It needs to have enough contrast to the body copy font to make the heads stand out. But it must have the...
View ArticleInDesign CC ePUBs now handle floating graphics fairly well
There are always going to be complaints. But I can do everything I want to do with anchored graphics right now. With one major exception: It’s hard to predict what will happen with a graphic crossing a...
View ArticleFont Design Webinar, tomorrow June 10 Noon Eastern
FontLab’s F I’ll be sharing tips and techniques on letterspacing. This important task is relatively easy in FontLab and I’ll show you how. Here’s FontLab’s invite: Advanced Font Creation Tips, Made...
View ArticleInDesign CC 2014 offers excellent fixed layout ePUBs
This is probably the big news for InDesign CC 2014. Although there have been many improvements to Reflowable ePUBs, they are incremental. The ePUB FXL has the possibility of being almost revolutionary....
View ArticleInDesign CC 2014 Reflowable ePUBs are even better
Although the large changes in ePUB export are seen in the fixed layout variety, what they now call reflowable ePUBs are also improved. They have their own dialog box and they are a separate choice when...
View ArticleCover design: A wonderful crosshatching video for ink drawing…
I found this today, going through my emails. It is beautiful and wonderful. About five minutes… Dan Nelson’s delightful Cross Hatching library teaching ink illustration Does this take a lot of time?...
View ArticlePage Layout Part 5: Graphic needs of the formats
Graphic needs for Print, PDF, ePUB, & Kindle KFX For book publishing, what you need to understand about graphics is how usage varies in the different formats. You’ll need to hand-adjust to produce...
View ArticleThe variety in italic fonts is astounding
Hoefler&Co. posted an excellent article this morning about italic fonts. It covers a dozen varieties (though it seems like more), plus it explains some of the reasons why italics end up with the...
View ArticleColor e-ink paperwhite: coming soon?
Gizmag has an interesting article today about color e-Ink. They claim it will not have any impact on ereaders. I hope they are wrong. Paperwhites, and their ilk, are one of the largest drags of ebook...
View ArticleKindle image size rules change again
Again, Kindle image size rules change. Not a whole lot, but the new outrageous Kindle image sizes become more understandable. I was reading a Kindle formatting guide, from Amazon, the other day which...
View ArticleInDesign CC ePUBs now handle floating graphics fairly well
There are always going to be complaints. But I can do everything I want to do with anchored graphics right now. With one major exception: It’s hard to predict what will happen with a graphic crossing a...
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