There’s no real post for today because I’m bogged down trying to get the draft of the new typography booklet done. My aim is to get the draft done by Wednesday so I can send it out to reviewers and have it back by early next week for revisions. However, the list of things to complete before that happens just keeps getting longer, it seems.
The booklet is not just some hacked together piece of junk. I’m at least 30 hours into the implementation (that doesn’t count thinking and designing time). One decision I made was to showcase only 40 fonts. I was originally going to showcase 60 fonts but then I realized that that was not going to help people. The main aim of the booklet is to help a GIS person choose a great font to make their cartographic output more professional. A side bonus could be that the map will be more unique (if they decide not to use Arial!) though in many cases what we want from a map design is to ensure that the typeface will not stand out so uniqueness is not always part of the GIS person’s goals.
So, to ensure that I was actually helping things I decided to keep it to 40 fonts. I figure if I showcase 60 then I’m not really making the GIS person’s job easier as there will be that many fonts to wade through. Besides, with the 40 that I do show, there are plenty of great options to choose from.
Currently I’m doing those editing tasks that take more time then you would ever imagine. This afternoon, for example, was spent rounding up the necessary verbiage for trademarks and registered trademarks since many fonts fall under one of those categories. The next thing to do is run through my checklist of possible error-points including making sure that all font names are spelled correctly (as they can be very creative with their spellings) and that the correct designer name and spelling is listed under the fonts. I’ve got a check list going that could rival a pilot’s checklist so those are only a couple of the many things to do.
It is exciting to be closer to finished, however, and to see how the finished product is going to look!
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