Pimp my Type Oliver Schöndorfer

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 Accessibility0:05:00 Accessibility is not only for the blind0:09:10 How reading works0:12:30 Accessibility is Legibility, Readability, Likability0:17:00 What makes an accessible typeface?0:28:15 Sans-Serif vs. Serif fonts0:35:00 Are accessible fonts always the same?0:42:45 Should we avoid very expressive fonts?0:46:45 Fonts for dyslexia1:02:50 Making accessible fonts inaccessible1:07:15 Text Contrast: Light on Dark, Dark on Light1:14:00 Use italic text sparingly1:16:50 Tracking fonts1:21:00 Avoid centered text1:25:35 Are ligatures problematic or helpful?1:30:00 Be careful with Guidelines1:32:00 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