| font guide: 2013 edition
font guide:
fonts i could not live without. plus some tips & other stuff. created in photoshop cs5.
An updated version of a font guide I posted in 2011 (you can find that guide here). A few people have asked for some tips/pointers/etc on my text, so I thought it was time for a little update of this thing. Below you will find my favorite fonts and some probably useless tips on how I text, lol. I'm gonna tell you right now that not much has changed since this guide was posted in 2011. A lot of the stuff I did then I still do now. A lot of the fonts I liked then, I still like now, etc. I hope this will be useful. Please feel free to ask me questions in the comments if something is not clear.
SOME USELESS TIPS ABOUT TEXT
01. I always go into an icon thinking I'm going to add text to it. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Don't be afraid to try out text every time you make an icon.
02. Whenever you are going to manipulate your text in any way, it's always important to rasterize. When you rasterize your text layer(s) it becomes just like a regular graphics or bitmap layer thus preserving quality if you want to blur, sharpen, move it or shrink it in anyway. Think of your text like one big image. Rasterizing preserves the "image's" quality. However, it's important to make sure you are completely done using the text tool before you rasterize. Once a text layer is rasterized you cannot edit the size/font/color of your text. So get all of your text stuff out of the way right away.
03. Don't be afraid to sharpen or blur your text. This is one text ~*ritual*~ I always always stick to. After I've done all of my editing with the text tool, placed the text where I want it, I rasterize and then sharpen and blur. But I don't use these at full strength. I always immediately fade the sharpen and the blur to around 50-55% every time. Doing this gives you not too sharp/not too blurry text.
04. Try merging all of your text layers into one layer for easier positioning and placement of text. My tried and true method for for placement/positioning is using Free Transform. Don't forget to rasterize once you've merged everything! And hold down the Shift key when using Free Transform. If you forget to do that your text will get that unpleasant squished yucky look! And of course, no tool is perfect. Free Transforming or rotating your text (even when the layer or layers are rasterized) will sometimes tend to make your text look a little on the pixel-y side, this is unavoidable. And that's why I always use a slight blur on my text. While it doesn't take away that yucky stuff completely it does improve it a little.
05. Try out new things that you haven't done before. Lately, I've been lowering the opacity of my text layers to around 80-90%. I find this looks as good as if you had blurred the text slightly. I tend to use a lot of white/beige with my text, and lowering the opacity of a text layer when it's a white or beige color actually looks really good.
06. Adding little accents to your text can spice things up a bit. I like to add an underline to a sentence or word of text (you can do this easily by using Photoshop's Line tool) or sometimes I'll add a blurb of tiny text as an accent (easily done by setting pretty much any font to around 2px in all caps with tracking at +200). You can even browse Photoshop's Custom Shapes menu for nifty little accents to add to your text. Here are some examples from my icons:
07. Warping text is fun too! The only real tips I can give for warping text is to really play around with the sliders. My favorite setting for warped text is Rise with the Horizontal slider at 12-14%. Some examples:
08. Mess around with the colors in your text to make it really stand out! One example in my icons:
To do this, you just make the color of each word/sentence different and then move each layer up, down and to the side until you get something really cool looking! This can be time consuming, though, so be patient when trying this out. This also is a fun subsitute for using Drop Shadow. Personally, I rarely if ever use Drop Shadow on my text anymore. I can't make it work and I really don't like the way it looks.
09. Keep track of all your font settings! Believe me, it will definitely make your life easier. Once I've used a font a few times and get comfortable with it, I'll save the settings I like it at into a Word document on my computer. I pull up this document every time I'm working with text. Such a time-saver!
MY FAVORITE FONTS
A Bugs Life
This fonts looks good on all caps and the tracking at +100-200. It looks great really small and also large.
AlexBrush
Just a pretty scripty font I love to use. The accents on the capitalized letters are just lovely.
Arial
One of the old stand-by's that should come loaded onto your computer. I love the versatility of this one. There's just so many things you can do with it!
BlackKnightFLF
I just recently picked this one up (from Tumblr, I think). I love the gothic look to it.
Bodoni MT
Try this one out on lowercase in italic. Absolutely gorgeous font! Looks good large or small.
Book Jacket
Such a cool chunky font. Good for emphasizing words or large blocks of text.
Cabin
This font rocks in a small size in all caps. I shamelessly use this one a lot!
Channel
This font is so pretty. I recommend only using it for one word on icons. It tends to get wonky if you use it for sentences or paragraphs.
Christopher Hand
I haven't actually used this one yet, but it's so pretty and some day I'm going to make it work on an icon!
Corneria Script
Just another pretty scripty font I like.
Courier New
A fantastic chunky font best for large blocks of text.
Dear Joe
I love the loops on the letters with this one. However, it doesn't do punctuation at all so I don't use it for more than one word or sentence.
Dubiel
More scripty font goodness. I have a real addiction to these types of fonts because I love the pretty so much.
Elephant
A really elegant font. I love it best in italic with the tracking at +100-200.
Folks
Folks comes in a variety of styles (Bold, Black and Light), I recommend having them all. However, I really hate the way the I's look with it. Most of the time I end up erasing the dot on the I. I'm OCD like that though. xD
Futura
Another font with a ton of variety (Futura LT and Condensed are the two I have). I love the versatility of this one. It looks good in bold, all caps, italic. Futura is a good solid font to have in your collection.
Georgia
Another old stand-by font that should be installed in your system already. I use this one the most for smaller blocks of text. I don't like the way this one looks at anything bigger than 9pt. I think the italics is kind of ugly with it too. It's awesome for tiny text, though!
King
A good alternative to Courier New. If you like to put large blocks of text over a subject's face this font (with the opacity lowered slightly) is excellent for that. I find that it doesn't clutter everything like some block-like fonts tend to do.
Levi Marker
A really fun font for words or sentences. I don't use this one too often, but if I want a different look to an icon I'll go this one. Looks best if used in different colors like purple or pink.
Modern No. 20
Similar to Bodoni MT, this font looks elegant and pretty in italics. Also very versatile! Looks good large or small.
Nilland
Sort of an alternative to King or Courier New. I love the gothic looking chunky letters in this font. You can even place words really close together with this one and it still looks cool.
Nouvelle Vague
I use this one a lot. Of all the fonts I have this one is probably the one I love the most. Try it out at around 20pt with tracking at -25. Looks best large I think. I've tried it out small and I don't think this one holds up too well at anything smaller than 20pt.
Some Weatz Swashes
This one can be kind of tricky to use sometimes, but I love a challenge! Try this one out at 18pt in bold, it looks really pretty for paragraphs and/or sentences.
Times New Roman
And last, but definitely not least, this old stand-by. It comes with your system and looks awesome in just about every way - bold, caps, italic, there's really nothing you can't do with this one! I like to use this one for tiny text or bold chunks of text.
I've compiled all of the fonts above into handy dandy zip/rar files for you, since I'm too lazy to go searching for links, lol. The file(s) are 6 MB each. Please comment when you are downloading, thank you!
Download: | RAR / ZIP
→ feel free to comment if you're not sure about something here!
→ I'm still taking questions @ Ask the Maker and you can find my thread H E R E.