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One of the new FontShop projects I’m collaborating on are the Gallery tabs, one of the many new features added to FontShop.com in the past months. My experience with the Typophile Type Identification Board has taught me that real world examples play an important role in the selection of typefaces. People want to use what they have seen and like – type on a movie poster, used for a logo, on an album cover, in a magazine, a corporate identity. Specimens can teach you quite a bit about the specifics of a type design, the range of its character set, how it sets, and so on, but as my FontFeed co-editor Stephen Coles writes in last month’s Type Trends 2010 edition of FontShop News: “Specimens are nice, but when selecting type it’s often more useful to do a reality check. (…) This can help you make an informed decision when selecting typefaces.”
This means FontShop now works both ways. You can still send found samples of type in use to the Font Identification and Research Team. Because, frankly, no piece of automated wizardry can beat the keen eye of a seasoned type identifier.
But once you have found the typeface you like you can now also see expanded sample graphics and examples of the type in use in the real world, simply by clicking the Gallery tab “behind” the Specimen. A grey square with a number tells you how many of these examples are available for this type family. As samples are attached to type “families”, you will find the same images for the various weights and widths, and digitisations from different foundries. However whenever those versions have contrasting designs – like for example the “standard” Walbaum and the Monotype cut – then the Galleries will also hold different examples.
Clicking a Gallery preview will make the sample expand to its full size. A link underneath this expanded image leads you to its source. All the new additions can be found on the Latest Gallery Submissions page.
Together with the FontShop crew we have been busy filling those Galleries with new images. Personally I am pulling my examples from specific resources – of course the International Movie Poster Awards website which I frequently peruse for my ScreenFonts feature on The FontFeed and the Flickr set on the FontShop BeNeLux page, but also the Book Cover Archive for which Stephen and I provide type identification. Next I will turn my attention to credit cards via Card Observer, and after that maybe corporate design via Brand New and Identityworks. We’ll see how it progresses.
Add the Gallery bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar simply by dragging the icon into the toolbar.
You however can also help with adding examples of fonts in use for the gallery tabs, and make sure your favourites are represented. Submit your own work or work you admire using a simple bookmarklet. Just add the bookmarklet to your browser and click it whenever you visit a website with images worthy of submission. You can find the tool on the Gallery page — click “Submit images to the Gallery”.
Clicking the bookmarklet highlights all the images eligible for the FontShop Gallery on a web page. Select one of the highlighted images to submit it to the Gallery.
But there is more. Because the link underneath each image leads back to the source of the image, you can use the Gallery function to put your work in the spotlight. If you have designed something using a specific typeface and an image of that design is available online, people interested in that typeface will find their way to your website and portfolio. This seems like a good deal for very little effort. What are you waiting for?
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