Have you ever noticed that most sans serif fonts are a little boring when you go to italicize them?  The Calibri Font adds just a little more flavor to its italic version.  You can see below how the Calibri font does more than just lean to the right like its boring cousin Arial.  Some of the lines are slightly curved, some letters are more rounded and others are completely different.  You see a drastic difference more often in serif fonts like Times Roman.  Italic fonts are used for book printing text in a number of places.  Italics can be used for chapter titles or subtitles in books.  You can also use them for captions or when you are quoting what someone is saying or has said.  Book publishing can be a fun but challenging task.  Make sure you have a good set of fonts in your toolbox!

As we have discussed before, you will need to use a combination of fonts for the final presentation of your book.  This book printing font combination is Futura HV for the heading and Palatino Linotype for the body text.  If you study fonts you will begin to see many minor differences in what seem to be similar fonts.  The way a font presents capital letters is probably the easiest way to spot differences.  Another way is to look at certain lowercase characters like the letters “a” and “g”.  Even within the same font category you will see some differences.  Some font differences are easy to spot, others are more subtle.  Novelty is a serif font like Palatino.  I think Novelty has a much warmer, rounded look to it.  I would consider using Palatino in a book for adults and Novelty in books written for children.

PS: I made up that line about camping in Arkansas.  I have been camping in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and even in the Ukraine, but I’ve never camped in Arkansas.  Do I hear a banjo in the distance?

If you are under 40 years old, you may have never even used a typewriter!  In the late 80’s, when I was in college, we had luxurious electric typewriters.  Some of them even had eraser ribbons built in!  If you didn’t have one of these you had to either cross out or use white-out to correct your mistakes.  If you wanted to insert a sentence or paragraph, no problem.  Just re-type the entire paper!  There was no spell or grammar check, you were on your own.  If you were typing your paper in the middle of the night for a class that was at 8:00 the next morning, make sure you don’t run out of typewriter ribbon.  Oh, and if you dropped your paper in a puddle on the way to class, you had to give the professor a wet smeared mess.  There was no button to reprint the paper.  I can’t imagine an author trying to write and entire novel or book using a typewriter. 

When I was in High School, we took a typing class using electric typewriters.  The kids now take a class called “Keyboarding.”  I didn’t want to be a secretary so I thought knowing how to type would be useless….boy was I wrong!  Oh, and the picture on the right is of Angela Lansbury, not me.

The font in the picture is called Prestige.  There are a few computer fonts that have that old “typewriter” look, another one is Courier.  In the non-digital age, if you wanted to use artistic style, you had to do it by hand!

This is another alternative to Times New Roman font.  Bookman Old Style just sounds like a traditional font for printing a book.  Actually we don’t recommend using Times New Roman for book printing any more.  It is a little too commonly used for so many other text printing applications.  Sometimes it’s nice to make your pages a little more unique. Bookman Old Style has been around for over a hundred years but it still works great.

Tired of hearing about the quick brown fox?  I found a new sentence that contains all of the letters of the alphabet!

We have relied heavily on Google over the years to bring us search traffic from around the country.  When people search for book printing, book publishing, book printing or types of books like yearbooks or family history books we try to be as “search-friendly” as possible.  If you found us through a search, please send us a note to tell us what you typed in the search box!

I don’t always report on whatever Google is up to but this time it had to do with the font in their logo!  They went from some type of serif font to a new sans serif look.  Their blog said that they were trying to find a logo that was a little more mobile friendly.  The heavier sans serif font seems to do the trick….and of course, the missing color is GREEN.  What do you think, was it a good choice?

Well, we have had fun for a few weeks and it’s time to get back to business!  Remember, if you are looking for a font for the paragraph text when publishing a book, you need to find a good serif font.  Garamond has been a classic book printing font of choice for many years.  This is another alternative to Times New Roman.  Garamond offers a familiar and professional look to your readers.  Don’t let the creativity stop when you finish writing your book!  Experiment with many different fonts, even combinations of fonts.  One font for the body of the text and another, possibly sans serif font, for headings and captions.  The combination below shows Garamond teamed up with a bold Calibri font for a heading.  I picked these two because the letters “g” and “a” were similar.

It seems like I’ve seen a font like this on a 70’s album cover or something in that time period.   If you can remember let me know!  The font is called Harlow D.  You would not use a font like this for the text inside a book but it might be a fun option for the book cover design depending on the type of book.  I’m not your average Hippie by any means but I do enjoy some vintage 70’s art and symbols!

Get hip to trying out a new font!  Even though it may be known formally as Mister Earl BT, this font is anything but straight-laced.  I have sneaked (yes, sneaked…snuck is not a word) this font into a few different places for our business.  Every once in a while you need to let people know that you are not the square closed minded person they think you are…..Live on the edge!

Sometimes you are looking for a specialty font.  Something that you would not use as the main text of a book but to insert a quote or other text you want to look more personal or handwritten.  A good font for that occasion is Freehand, Freehand 591 BT to be exact.  There seems to be a few different versions on Freehand but this is my favorite.  It is “cursive” looking but still informal and fun.  If you really want to make a computer font look like true cursive, you can adjust the spacing on a cursive style font, making the letters closer together so they almost touch.  What is Kerning?  Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between the letters.  Typically, only the more expensive page layout and graphic design programs give you this option.

Last week I suggested Microsquare as an alternative to the Arial font.  This week I have an alternative to Times New Roman.  Georgia is a nice contemporary font for anywhere you are using paragraph text.  I have used it for printing books and brochures as well as for website text applications.  I wonder what a font called Minnesota would look like….something having to do with lakes, loons and maybe snow…you betcha!