The greatest honour any type could achieve is to have its face loved and recognized by people. We realize that not all of us were crafted in an equally beautiful way — some of us turned to be a classic work of art, while others are simply tools to express one’s thoughts or communicate a message. The biggest fear of every type is to be used in ways that we were not intended for or abused to the point of being hated.

Sixteen of us finally got together with a plea to give us a break and forget about our existence for the next 25 years or so. Please give us a chance to get back our merits, we don’t want to be a typographic failure. There are so many other wonderful types (and not only the commercial ones) that would bring more sense and beauty to your designs, fliers, documents; the typefaces no one gets fired for using, fonts that will last you a lifetime. It is our hope that more people will write letters to those in charge at Microsoft, Apple and Adobe requesting to add more fonts (such as Adobe Caslon Pro, Adobe Jenson Pro, Franklin Gothic, Frutiger, Futura, Gill Sans, Helvetica Neue, Univers and Warnock Pro) to the core system.

So next time you see any of our 16 faces in your software’s fonts list, skip it and experiment with another, find a more suitable type for your specific project needs. In the end you’ll thank us for that.

1. COMIC SANS — don’t take me seriously, please

The only reason I was created by Vincent Connare was to replace the use of Times New Roman in Microsoft’s comic software called Microsoft Bob. I was never supposed to show my face in places other than comics and speech bubbles. I was never intended to be used in official documents nor am I close to looking like kids handwriting. And even though I’m flattered that Apple liked me so much that released my clone, I never dreamed of making the list of the default system fonts on all computers.

2. TIMES NEW ROMAN — don’t kill my timeless look

I curse the day when I became the default font in all Microsoft applications. I wonder how did I get this “honour” from Bill, considering the fact that I’ve never been fond of him myself. The only hope I have left is that people will realize there are other fonts at their service, all they need to do is to scroll down that fonts list.

3. HELVETICA — I’m so tired to be the IT font

Some designers are praising me and dedicating films, others hate for being “spaced tightly”, but most agree that I’ve become a safe font that is heavily overused. Please, understand that you can’t always rely on me to illustrate and deliver your every message. I’m not perfect for everyone and every occasion.

4. BRUSH SCRIPT MT — I can’t turn you into an artist

I know you love me, with a passion that even my creator, Robert E. Smith, could’ve not envisioned back in 1942. But please, don’t use me every time you need to show off your artistic side in ads and posters. Take a look at my fellow types — Feel Script, Sarah Script, Metro Script. Why should they enjoy a tranquil life while I do all the hard work? Oh, and please, don’t use me in ALL CAPS, I get very ugly when I have to scream.

5. PAPYRUS — I’m in the middle of the Hate and Heart war

Hey, how about this font—it looks interesting? And so they choose me. I know I’m everywhere – from a local coffee shop to war posters. Even my creator, Chris Costello, wishes he had a disclaimer attached to me: “May be habit forming. Not responsible for overdose or inappropriate use of this product.”

6. CURLZ MT — I’m too cute to handle too much text

In 1995 Steve Matteson & Carl Crossgrove designed me to “look like bent, twisted metal” and to be used for “carefree titles”, menus and greeting cards. Beyond that I’m too ornate to deliver a legible message and too whimsical to represent businesses. I know my limitations, one of them being the fact that I’m not the Audrey Hepburn type.

7. KRISTEN ITC — I wasn’t meant to be your average type

I was designed by George Ryan in 1995, who described me as “not your average text or display font” that was inspired by a handwritten restaurant menu. Now I became just your average “kids” font for teachers and scrapbooking, and just about everything else when Comic Sans needs a break.

8. ZAPF CHANCERY — I don’t want to be revived anymore

Designed in 1979 by Hermann Zapf and based on chancery handwriting of the Italian Renaissance era, I usually pick up where other scripts fail, and more often than not in All-Caps or Italic. I’m tired of seeing my distorted face, please let me rest in peace.

9. TRAJAN — I hate Hollywood movies

Yes, I have a rich history, being one of the first original display faces for Adobe, thanks to talented Carol Twombly. But I bet that even she could not have predicted that the movie industry designers would become so obsessed with me.

10. BRADLEY HAND ITC — do I really look like your handwriting?

Why so many people are infatuated with Richard Bradley’s handwriting is beyond me. Indeed, I was designed to bring a personal touch to digital correspondence, but when everyone’s handwriting looks the same I stop being personal, don’t I?

11. IMPACT — Closer to a collision nowadays

Designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 with the intention to make an “impact” with a strong statement. However, often I can be overwhelming and overshadow all your other messages, and I should never be used for body text. Keep in mind that the more people use me to make an impact the less effect I will have on the reader as a result.

12. ALGERIAN — help, I’m burning in hell

I was created by Phillip Kelly in 1988, aimed to embellish “any work which suggests the Victorian era”. Want to guess what actually happened? You can see me everywhere from restaurants to sports to movie credits, and lots of examples in Flickr’s pool — Algerian Font, a burning hate.

13. COOPER BLACK — I came to you from the past

Storefronts favour me a lot. It’s not surprising though, I look good with the flowing “outer contours”, but after seeing myself on so many signs, I get very dizzy. I wonder how Oswald Cooper, who designed me in 1921, would’ve characterized my purpose?

14. MONOTYPE CORSIVA — adding sparkle, but can get too shiny

Designer Patricia Saunders has designed me primarily for use as initial letters, not for displaying an entire poem. As linotype.com suggests: “Monotype Corsiva can be used for short text passages in advertising but is best used to add sparkle to invitations, greetings cards and menus and to give a sense of occasion to certificates and awards.”

15. VIVALDI — inviting you and the rest of the world

I was designed by Friedrich Peter in 1994, and I am ideal for invitations, certificates. I am definitely not a text font, and should be used sparingly, not everyone can read me my intricate letters especially the caps. Oh, and I never thought that I’ll be a popular font choice for tattoos.

16. COPPERPLATE GOTHIC — a peculiar impact

I was designed by Frederic W. Goudy in 1900s. Because of my looks – wide, no lowercase, only small caps, and quirky tiny serifs – some designers find me challenging to work with, while others use me almost every time they get a chance and almost always inappropriately.

More Type debates and obituaries

There are myriads of type-related debates on the Web, which often get so heated you can feel the tension in the air. There are those who attack and wish to see as dead, there are others who defend, though in the end it’s clear to both sides that some typefaces are severely abused:

• Type Obituaries
• Reviled Fonts
• America’s Most Fonted
• 5 Fonts I wish Would Die
• Typefeces
• Overused Fonts
• Best Most Overused Fonts
• Tragic Typefaces

Which other typefaces should join our plea to stop the abuse? Do you really hate us that much, or do you hate the misuse and overuse? Voice your opinion here, please.

I’m constantly scouring the Web looking for sites with an exquisitely crafted typography and getting under their hoods, studying the CSS code, trying to uncover their magic tricks in achieving a perfectly balanced typographic designs accomplished with only one or few of the twelve web safe fonts that are installed on all computers.

Inspired by John’s article on Web Typography, I decided to go behind the scenes of my favourite sites and gently tear them apart and share with you all those secret bits I’ve managed to find.

First Bit – A List Apart

Our first stop is going to be non-other but A List Apart itself – a powerful testament of what can be achieved with a good eye on typography, knowledge of grid, a little bit of colour and abundance of style.

Despite its rather minimalistic design, there are lots of things happening under ALA’s roof:

1. Fonts used:

   There are three fonts that are used throughout the site: Georgia, Verdana and occasional Times. However, a careful look at the site reveals a number of stylistic/layout manipulations that give A List Apart such an opulent look.

   First of all, ALA is based on a semi-authentic elastic layout, setting the default font size in the body tag to font-size:0.8125em and the font-family:Verdana,sans-serif. All the consequent hierarchy of text sizes vary from the date set in uppercase 0.9em Verdana, letter-spaced with 0.33em to the introduction text set in Georgia, italic, size 1.05em to the post’s title being displayed in 1.8em Georgia font and the author’s name shown in uppercase 0.85em Verdana, with 2px space between the letters.

2. Font Styles:

   A masterful switch from uppercase letters to italic to bold creates a rich font hierarchy. It’s a simple math after all – with three type faces and three styles of each of the fonts you get nine different types. Add to that all the different sizes you can set the font in and the possibilities are pretty much unlimited. Just take a look at the elegant menu text on the site, who could know that you can achieve that by setting your characters with the uppercase 18px Georgia.

3. White Space:

   The quickest way you could improve any web site’s typography and the overall look is by injecting generous amounts of white space here and there. On A List Apart the text lines in all paragraphs breath easily with the line-height:1.8em and font-size:0.88em. There’s plenty of padding and margin space between the block elements and various sections.

And here is a close look at how it is possible to lay out a stunning page by applying some of the techniques learned from A List Apart:

Notice a subtle change in font styles in the byline, where the word “by” is set in 1.1em Times, italic, while the rest of the line with the author’s name is set in a complimenting uppercase bold 0.85em Verdana and 2px letter-spacing.

By varying types and styles, with carefully thought out white space, and with the help of a well organized grid it becomes so much easier to read from screen where each section shines with individuality.

This study of web site typography has certainly helped me a lot, and I’ve already envisioned how the text would be laid out in my re-designed site. Let me know what you think of it and what would you like me to concentrate more in my research of exquisite web typography? Which are your favourite sites with beautiful typography?

In my next installment of a great typography on the Web I will be going behind the scenes of a gorgeously looking website that is featured in every CSS gallery out there, and the most incredible thing about this site that all the stunning typography was achieved by using only ONE typeface: Georgia. Be sure you’re subscribed to Inspiration Bit so you don’t miss out on how you too can add some grace to your own site’s typography.

This article is also an entry to Jacob’s $5000+ PRIZE GIVEAWAY – Graphic Design Group Writing Project on Just Creative Design – just in time for the deadline on March 4^th.

Babies are colour-dominant: they are more attracted by colour than form. And even though we generally become more form-dominant as we mature, colour still plays an important role on how we perceive the message. For instance, why does red always call to attention? Whether you want to tweak the colours of your site, or design an ad or a poster to attract people to your products or services, or even paint the walls in your house, these colour essentials should help you in becoming more colour-wise.

DO take time to learn the colour wheel. All colours are
made up of three primaries: red, blue and yellow. When you combine the primaries, you get the three secondary colours: orange, purple and green. When you combine each secondary colour with its neighboring primary, you get six tertiary colours: yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple, red-purple, red-orange. That’s how you get the familiar 12-colour wheel.

Every colour has a temperature: from the red/yellow side of the spectrum it’s warm, and from the blue/purple side it’s cool. It has an intensity that’s described as saturation or chroma. Saturation is determined by how much or how little grey a colour contains. High intensity colours are pure, bright and vivid. Less saturated colours are muted, soft and subdued. Every colour has a value, determined by its lightness or darkness. When planning a colour combination, value and saturation are as important as the hue (synonymous with colour).

DON’T miss on understanding the basic colour wheel rules:

• Most colours look great when combined with the shades in various values or intensities. These colour schemes are called Monochromatic, which consist of colours drawn from the same hue.
• Colours also love to hang out with their next door neighbors. Any three neighboing colours on a 12 part colour wheel make up an Analogous colour scheme. They are always harmonious as they share the same undertones: yellow-green, yellow and yellow-orange. To add a bit more impact to the analogous group, you can expand it with another neighboring color, e.g. orange.
• Opposites attracts, even with colours, and that’s how you get Complementary colours: they are the opposite hues on the colour wheel, that “complete” each other when used as a pair. Warm colours have cool complements and vice versa.

I found this handy Flash application that visually explains the colour wheel in an easy to follow style. There’s also a helpful HP colour wheel that showcases different colour schemes.

DO analyze the colour undertones.
If you like blue but want a subtle effect, choose a white or grey with a blue undertone. A red-orange terracotta pot has a yellow tone to it, hence those colours will blend harmoniously with each other. On the other hand, don’t emphasize an undesired undertone by pairing it with its complement: if the shade of brown has a pink undertone to it, combining it with green (the complement of red) will only intensify the problem.

Learn to identify colour tone, its warmth or coolness. A warm blue contains some red that makes it to look more purple, while a cool blue contains some green, which makes it more aqua or teal.
Do keep in mind that neutrals also have undertones. Often people will mistake grey for blue if there’s a blue undertone, or plum if the undertone is violet.

DON’T neglect the fact that colours ‘change’ according to their surrounding:
A large rectangle and a narrow line (or type) of the same colour will seem to have different values when placed against a white background: the colour in the line will look darker than it does in the rectangle, because it’s surrounded by much brighter white space.

When two shades of the same colour, one dark and one light, are paired with each other, the darker shade will look darker and the lighter shade will appear to be lighter: a pink rose will seem to be paler against a purple background.

Larger colour spaces will affect the smaller ones: if a small square of medium yellow is surrounded by a larger area of black, the yellow square will seem to be brighter than when surrounded by white. Any colour will appear lighter against a darker colour and vice versa.

Outlining a colour in a darker shade will enhance the enclosed colour, helping to keep a colour from “spreading” into surrounding areas. On the other hand, a lighter outline will cause a colour to spread to adjacent colours, and reduce the strength of the enclosed colour.

This valuable tip comes from David Airey: There’s also the illusion how dark colours surrounding light ones will make the lighter area appear smaller than it is if it were the opposite (dark surrounded by light). It’s why you should always bump up the text size if you insist on using white text against a black background.

DO explore the colour psychology
While perceptions of color are rather subjective, and have different meanings in various cultures, some colours affect us in a similar way. The human eye sees warm colours before cool hues. Cool colours appear to recede, while warm colours appear to advance, however the degree of saturation can make a difference.

• RED: With its aggressive, stimulating and sexy nature, assertive attention and provoking action, the red is impossible to ignore.
• PINK: Depending on its saturation or value, pink evokes varied mood swings. Magenta and fuchsia are perceived as sensual and theatrical. But water-down the red in lighter pinks and the raw sensuality of red is replaced with gentle romanticism.
• ORANGE: Inheriting some of the drama of red, orange is tempered by the friendly humour of yellow. It’s the colour that stimulates the appetite and radiates with warmth and vitality.
• YELLOW: Yellow and black is the most unignorable colour combination in nature – tigers, stinging bees – it’s the colour that says: you’d better pay attention to me.
• BROWN: Rustic, durable, wholesome and deliciously rich are just some of the traits of the colour that’s often associated with earth and home, substance and stability.
• BLUE: Ever noticed how many corporations and financial institutions use blue in their brands? That’s because blue is seen as dependable and committed. It is also the colour we often associate with calm and serenity. Darken the blue and you’ll add an instant authority, credibility and power to it.
• GREEN: Because of its association with nature and foliage, green in design can be used almost like a neutral colour: greens never clash with red or pink roses, yellow sunflowers, lilacs or bluebells.
• PURPLE: It’s perhaps the most enigmatic and complex colour, with the range of meanings – from royal to elegant to spiritual to mysterious. Purple is often favoured by very creative and eccentric people who are not afraid of appearing daring.
• WHITE: Not surprisingly white communicates purity, sense of clarity and simplicity. White is also perceived by the human eye as a bright colour, that’s why it works so well in contrast with all other colours.
• BLACK: People see black as the most dramatic, heavy, powerful, classic colour with an up-scale look. Because of its extreme contrast to white, black and white is the quintessential combination of depth and clarity, power and innocence.

DON’T be afraid to experiment with colour combinations. Sometimes even the forbidden combinations work. Check out various online colour tools and applications that will help you to chose the right colour combination for your projects. Mac users can install numerous handy colour widget for the Dashboard: Adobe Kuler, Color Theory, ColorSchemer, ColorBurn.
UPDATE: I just found a great list of colour resources: Complete Color Matching Guide – it’s definitely worth to be bookmarked.

DO examine other sites and designs to determine which colour schemes are more appealing than others. In one of the upcoming weeks, I’ll be featuring sites that were designed with the excellent knowledge and sense of colour. Meanwhile, browse numerous CSS galleries, bookmark the sites with attractive colour schemes, thumb through the pages of various design magazines, books, not just the ones for graphic designers, but also architectural and interiour design publications, where you will be inspired by the innovative and fabulous colour combinations.

DON’T forget about the readability when combining
colour with type. It’s true that we mainly deal with the black type on white paper/page background, and that a black text on a light background is the easiest to read. However, it doesn’t mean that colour and type don’t mix. When used well, colour can add an emphasis to your message. Pay attention to the relative values and saturation of colours when a background colour interacts with coloured type. The contrast between type and background diminishes when their values move closer to each other, and the type becomes less legible. The contrast between the type colour and the background colour must be considerable to ensure that the type remains visible.

John from iLT also gives this valuable advice: “when using reversed out text (e.g. light on dark), it’s often advisable to make the text a little heavier, as the dark background tends to optically reduce the weight of the text.”

I belong to the second category: I’m not ashamed to admit my “fetish for footers”. Especially because I chose the layout with only an excerpt of the latest article, I think adding the footer will make the site much more usable and attractive. I don’t want to mix in my sketches with this post, but I’ll be definitely showing you my rough designs next week. Today I want to inspire you with 16 well-crafted footers by other designers.

I tried featuring here the sites that I didn’t showcase in my last week’s post, though there were some very nicely designed footers as well.

1. Personal Bablishing

I really like the tag cloud in the footer of this web site with that wicked worn look that’s masterfully taught by Cameron Moll. The rest of the site navigation is located in the left sidebar with cleverly scripted horisontal tabs.

2. Split Da Diz

Here’s another footer that features a tag cloud, along with the blogroll and the Flickr stream. Check out how the image of the latest article is double-featured in the header image. By the way, be sure to check an excellent resource on that site: “99 sites that I wouldn’t want to miss” (at the present the most current post). Even though the blog is in French, you shouldn’t have any problems understanding what kind of sites it’s talking about (you can also translate it with Babelfish, by entering the page’s URL).

3. eleven3

Despite having one of the busiest backgrounds I’ve ever seen the site is very legible and sports not one but two footer-like sections: one titled “super bonus posts” lists Related, Recent and Latest entries; and the second one on the rich textured green canvas showcases Flickr stream and links from del.icio.us.

4. Missy – great design is in my jeans

I really like the designs that have a theme – this one is of course all about jeans: everything from the different stitches running through the site pages to the various jeans backgrounds imitate the design of jeans. Here the stylishly decorated footer only features a long list of the site’s categories.

5. SimoneStudio

Even though this site is not a blog, it’s been made with Textpattern, and has a very delicately designed footer. I especially liked their idea of placing the Contact Us form in the footer.

6. Web Designer Wall

This exquisitely designed blog needs no introduction. Nick La has reserved sections like Recent Posts, Recent Comments and About for his site’s footer.

7. Lady Omega

Moody, dark, pretty in pink, Gothic… Lady Omega spotlights not one but four footers: the first one displays the blogroll, the second one showcases the numerous site icons that featured this blog in their galleries (this part disappears when you are viewing the single page template), the third one enlightens us with the words of wisdom, and the fourth, (the “official” footer in HTML terms), with the dark graphics presents us with the Flickr photos, Tunes from last.fm and books from Amazon (plus the regular copyright data).

8. PSDTuts

PSDTuts footer is very clean and cleverly organized. I especially like the switching tabs to view the Best of PSDTuts (All time, Recently and Random), and Text Sponsors – wouldn’t you like to see only this kind of non-distracting ads on the Web?

9. Blog.SpoonGraphics

A bit of illustration, a wrinkled paper for the background – sometimes that’s all you need to design a nice looking footer that becomes instantly recognizable. SpoonGraphics decided to feature its Top Tutorials, Top Articles and Top Downloads in the footer.

10. Who is Jen Gordon

So who is this Jen Gordon anyway, and what’s with that Bigfoot photo in the header? Well, at least you can quickly find out what is she blogging about by checking out the footer – Categories, Recent Posts, Links – they’re all in there.

11. Astheria

This blog’s minimalistic design is super practical and user friendly. Just check out the switching tabs in the footer that give you a quick access to most popular posts, recent comments, twitter messages, archive by month and categories.

12. Jon Tan

“This simple dish was created with a little xHTML, a dash of CSS and a pinch of PHP.”, wrote Jon about his blog. I would also add that this simple dish is delicious. The understated long footer features the best articles of the blog. At the first glance the minimalistic design doesn’t impress beyond the fact that it’s very clean and elegant, but after a careful study you start discovering all those hidden gems like the use of “Baskerville” in the font-family, and the display of the post’s title on the left instead of the usual placement above the article. That’s exactly how I was planning to implement post titles in my new design, along with the drop cap for the first letter of the post, before visiting Tan’s blog. Why is there often someone else who implements your ideas before you do?

13. FortySeven Media

A dash of the worn look and a bit of sIFR in the titles, striking colours – and you get a very attractive footer. Notice how FortySeven Media wisely mixex its company site with the blog and promote the recent Web and Print design works in the footer along with the Recent Blog entries.

14. Laura Alter

I like the highlighter style decoration for the titles in this pastel girly footer.

15. The Blog Herald

If fancy footers are not your thing, you can always go with the simplistic approach similar to the one Brian Gardner chose for The Blog Herald. Only now did I notice that he used there a very similar to my current blog’s background colour.

16. COLOURLovers

Another no-frills footer design over at COLOURLovers, though they did use different icons for their bulleted lists, and dotted separators between the three sections.

The two fundamental blocks in designing a site are the style and the layout. Sometimes the style dictates the layout, other times the structure of the site, its grid, influences the future theme of the site’s design. I will talk about various web site styles next time, today I’d like to tackle one of the new directions in blog’s layout that I consider using in my new design – it’s the trend of featuring only the latest article on the homepage while providing an easy access to a number of previous articles. I don’t know if this drift in the blog’s traditional design, where the readers are accustomed to seeing several posts all lined up in orderly fashion on the homepage, has a name, but I like how it makes a blog looking more like a regular web site than a journal.

To illustrate my point I’m presenting you with 16 blogs with this unconventional layout, which seems to be slowly overtaking the mainstream blog’s structure.

1. Warpspire by Kyle Neath

Kyle is the creator of a very popular and beautiful Wordpress theme Hemingway that features the excerpts from the two most recent posts and provides links to the rest of the blog’s content from the large footer. I like how on Warpsire Kyle accentuates the latest article with the post’s excerpt displayed on a big header image. Make sure to check out how Kyle is showcasing all other posts on his blog: by default ‘Everything’ is displayed below the header, the clicks on ‘Tips/Resources’ or ‘Reviews’ or ‘Marks’ bring us down to the corresponding posts.

2. jek2kdotcom by Nicolò Volpato

This gorgeously illustrated blog’s design is based on Hemingway, however Nicolò is featuring only the newest article and listing all other articles in the footer’s section ‘Recently’. I like how the site’s structure changes very little when switching to the Single Post layout when viewing the actual post.

3. No Ones Listening by Yasser Dahab

Yasser is a creator of another non-blog looking theme titled Kiwi that promotes the latest post. On his own blog he artfully features recent articles as four images in the header section (try mousing over them and follow the “star” icon going up and down the articles list in the middle column), and highlights his Newest article in a separate block. Too bad it’s been a long time since Yasser has updated* his blog.
*Edit: Looks like his blog no longer exists…

4. mezzoblue by Dave Shea

Dave is the co-author of the book “The Zen of CSS Design” and the creator of the site CSS Zen Garden that made thousands of designer to fall in love with CSS. So it’s not surprising that his attention to details on mezzoblue is so high. Browse his archives to see how his site is changing the hues and images in the header every couple of months. He’s featuring the 6 most recent entries in the header section, followed by the latest entry, which he ends again with the excerpts and links to three previous articles.

5. Left Justified by Andrew Krespanis

As the title suggests this website is left justified, with the fixed width of 763px. Its exquisite retro design features the snippet from the latest entry, and grabs our attention with the book-like content with the links to the Recent Entries. Be sure to click on the article to read the rest of the content and look at how cleverly Andrew organized the auxiliary data in the left sidebar.

6. Design by Comfort by Daniel Mall

Another left aligned web site with a clean and minimalistic design. The last five articles with the linked titles are displayed below the first paragraph of the latest post. It’s interesting to note that despite being the co-creator of swfIR, a client-side image replacement technique, the only images Dan Mall used on his personal site are the blog and section titles.

7. Rob Goodlatte by Rob

I absolutely love the style and the layout of this web site – a superb attention to details, a soothing colour scheme, an excellent use of Typography, including the use of sIFR for the titles. Notice the date implementation on the blog: the latest post was “Published 2 days ago, in the early morning under Apple, Design”, the previous article was “Published last year, at the end of December”.

8. North x East by Collis Ta’eed

It’s quite impossible not to notice the newest article on this blog – framed in a distinct box with the huge font size used for the title, accompanied with the arresting image, it substitutes the usual header section and immediately grabs our attention. The previous articles, displayed in a 23px Georgia font size, are not hiding in the shadow either.

9. 456 Berea Street by Roger Johansson

If even Roger Johansson, a renowned advocate of web standards, has chosen this non-traditional look for his blog, does it mean that soon we’ll be seeing more sites following this path? His “Slightly older articles” are displayed with linked titles, short descriptions and supplementary data like the number of comments, categories and the date.

10. Veerle Blog by Veerle

What can be said about Veerle’s blog that hasn’t been said already? She also chose to feature only the newest article on her homepage, while providing the links to the Recent Articles in the lower part of her sidebar.

11. Design Adaptations by Charity

As you saw from the previous sites most of them display only an excerpt of the latest article, with a “read more” link leading to the rest of the post. Charity on the other hand displays the full content of her newest article, with the search engine like list of “Recently Featured” articles below. I like how she cleverly implemented the display of the Most Popular, Recent, My Favourite and Top Commented posts all in one compact section in the footer with a quick and easy access to all of them through tabs.

12. Svenigson by Bence Kucsan

I’ve already praised Bence’s blog design in my last year’s article about the sites with the unique navigation. The latest article along with the designer’s photo are the main attraction of the homepage until you scroll down and find amazingly displayed previous articles in evenly shaped rectangles with the notebook paper background and interestingly formated dates, like “4 months, 1 week ago”.

13. Bartelme Design by Wolfgang Bartelme

Wolfgang’s Wordpress theme Dark Theme is another bloggers favourite. Each section of the blog – navigation, logo, latest post, recent entries and comments, sidenotes and Flickr stream – are all displayed in horisontally separated segments with different background colours, making them all stand out.

14. Tim Kadlec by Tim

Tim’s grudge styled site features the Recent Posts twice: first time right below the fragment of the latest post, with the more detailed view that includes image thumbnails, titles and some auxiliary data; and once again in the footer where they stay even when you’re landed on the single page, reading the full article.

15. PR Blogger by Stephen Davies

Despite such a striking resemblance of this blog’s title with another prominent blogger, Stephen’s site design is very different. Notice the vertical titles for Recent Articles and footer sections. It’s been designed by Matt Brett, whose blog also features the latest article and provides links only to the “previous entries”.

16. The Apple News

This site’s design obviously resembles one of a newspaper, with the list of recent posts displayed twice as Recent News in the left sidebar next to the Featured Article and once again in the footer in the form of Recent Entries.

So what do you think of this different approach in the blog’s design? Would you mind seeing something like that on Inspiration Bit?

I’ll be examining more web site features in my upcoming articles as well as let you behind the scenes of Inspiration Bit’s new design. So if you don’t want to miss all this, be sure to subscribe to my RSS or get email updates.

So if you’re looking for some design inspirations for your logo, it’s time to get back in shape, into geometric shape that is. The simple shapes that are used as the foundation for all other shapes are the square, rectangle, circle, oval or ellipse, and triangle. Each of them comes with a certain meaning that can be used in design appropriately.

Squares and rectangles are considered to be the most familiar man-made objects that surround us: just think of all those buildings we look at and live in, books, newspapers we read, the screens we stare at. All that helps squares and rectangles to evoke in us the feelings of comfort and safety. In design these shapes are used to suggest stability, knowledge and truth. Squares are often regarded as the most honest and trusted shapes, more so than rectangles.

Circles indicate completeness, freedom or infinity. They can be used to imply movement or security and protection. Circles and ovals are perfect attention grabbers due to their enclosing nature. Circles are considered to be the most perfect of all forms and are often used to convey the ideal choice.

Triangles are the most dynamic of all shapes. They can suggest growth, progress, action and movement. Due to their pointy nature triangles are often used in design to indicate a direction, pointing us in the right way.

All of those shapes can be combined with each other to achieve very interesting and unique designs and deliver an elaborate message. One triangle or a series of them can point to one or more directions. The shapes of one form can be grouped together to make another shape. The shapes can be used to replace letters of the same form, or vice versa, several letters together can form a shape.

The combinations and designs are limitless, just let your imagination fly. And to inspire you with some valuable ideas, take a look at how some of the well-known companies had their logos designed with geometric shapes.

1. Circle

HBO’s logo with a circle inside the ‘O’, simple as it is, still definitely grabs our attention.
Audi’s four rings certainly bear similarities with the Olympic rings, correlating with the idea of four Audi companies coming together as a group – AUDI, DKW, Horch and Wanderer.
ABC’s logo was designed by none other but the Logo Maestro himself – Paul Rand, who modified the old logo which was lowercase ‘abc’ inside a lower case ‘a’, and turned it into the current “abc circle” in 1962 by reducing each letter to its most elemental circular form.

Ubuntu Linux logo is a perfect example of experimenting with extracting and combining the clones of one shape (circle) with the right blend of colours.
MasterCard is another prime example in using interlocking circles, this time only two, with a few horisontal lines in the middle. The logo represents MasterCard Worldwide with its reach for a global audience.
BMW logo is using the Bavarian national colours of black, white and blue. In 1942 Wilhelm Farrenkopf, the Advertising Manager, has described the logo as the shining disk with the “shades of the engines, two silver divides and bright blue gleams that represent the sky”.

2. Oval

Ford’s distinctive oval logo was first introduced in 1907. The oval was designed to promote the company’s “hallmark for reliability and economy”. By 1911 the script lettering was added to represent the company’s name. Since 1976, the blue and silver Ford oval badge, called “Centennial Blue Oval” has been already used on all Ford vehicles
Toyota’s corporate logo is one of the instantly recognizable car logos. In 1936 Toyota announced a competition to come up with a logo design for the company that will communicate “the feeling of speed”. Two perpendicular ovals form a “T” for Toyota and the third oval around it symbolizes the company’s global expansion and infinite prospective future.
It wasn’t my intention to showcase only car logos in the Oval category, but looks like elliptical shape that conveys movement is favoured by many car manufacturers, including Kia Motors.

3. Triangle

The four red and two white triangles form a hexagon for HSBC’s logo. It was based on The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’s XIX century house flag – a white rectangle divided diagonally to produce a red hourglass shape. The company’s flag itself descends from the Scottish flag based on the cross of Saint Andrew.
Motorola’s stylized “M” logo was designed in 1955. The two upwardly directed triangles promote the company’s bold leadership and innovative spirit.
Did you know that you can extract three triangles from one big one by simply carving a small triangle inside, the way Triple Triangle Inc., a leading provider of plug-in products for Adobe InDesign, designed its logo.

4. Diamond

Three diamonds in Mitsubishi logo were chosen by Yataro Iwasaki, the founder, due to several reasons. The company name itself is a combination of the words “mitsu”, which means “three”, and “hishi” (which Japanese often pronounce as “bishi”), which denotes a rhombus or diamond shape. Iwasaki’s family crest was an image of three stacked rhombuses and Yataro’s first employer’s dynasty had an emblem with a three-leaf flower.
Renault too has an interesting story behind its logo. Originally the company started out with a circular badge, that was placed on the horn. In 1922 the centre of the badge was cut out to allow the sound to escape, and by 1924 the badge took the modern diamond shape. A new typeface Renault was designed for the company only because at a time it was cheaper to design a new typeface than use an existing one.
The Opus Group is a multi billion real estate development company, and its logo has been designed to use diamonds as building blocks to shape up a three dimensional image of the corporation.

5. Square / Rectangle

What I’d like to know is how much money did the multi billion company, the leader in tax preparations worldwide, pay to design the logo for H&R Block – a simple green square, a.k.a block, an obvious graphic representation of the company’s name. Nevertheless, it just shows you that you don’t need to come up with intricate designs for your logo – simply choose one of the basic geometric shapes, a colour, a classic typeface and start offering tax services, or at least don’t forget to pay your taxes.
In 1972 Deutsche Bank has commissioned eight graphic artists to design a logo that should be able to distinctively represent the company. The winning logo was Anton Stankowski’s the “slash in a square” with the company’s name set in the classic typeface Univers. The slash represents the bank’s consistent growth and dynamism, and the square is a sign of security and trust.
BBC’s famous logo with letters in boxes was introduced way back in 1962. Initially the boxes were squares and the letters were slanted. Later the logo evolved to the one with slanted boxes, until the final modern version straightened the sides from their 17.5-degree slant, and the typeface was changed to Gill Sans.

As you can see, all three logo cases above fulfill the main criteria required for a high quality brand:
- their simple yet striking forms are timeless
- free of any fashionable accents the logos can be implemented in all media
- they are all still clearly recognised when reduced in size and at great distances

I’ve previously written about National Geographic’s striking yellow box in my post 8 Bits Of The Most Brilliant Advertising Campaigns, and about SUN’s clever ambigram in my post on 8 Clever Logos. Columbia Sportswear Company’s logo bears a slight resemblance with SUN’s logo, however it’s not an ambigram, just a neat crosshatch pattern. Both are great examples of forming a familiar geometric shape with the use of other forms or letters.

6. Cube / 3D

Nintendo GameCube logo is a cube with several optical illusions. It actually includes two cubes, a ‘G’, and a ‘C’.
Sony Ericsson logo is everything you’d expect it to be to represent the joint venture of two giants – Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to make mobile phones. You can even practice creating this futuristic logo yourself by following a tutorial from pscloud.

Wikipedia’s Puzzle Sphere design is as famous as the website itself. It represents Wikipedia’s global audience as well as all those translations of the online encyclopedia to 253 foreign languages.

7. Mixed / Combinations

Adobe’s current logo didn’t always look like that, however the triangular shape of the first letter A from the old logotype was carried to the new design.
We can either love or hate AOL, but the attractive simplicity and the instant recognition of its logo with a sphere carved into a triangle, is indisputable.
Sometimes a union of two very different shapes like a rectangle and a circle can produce amazing results, and become very successful, just like it was in the case with HP’s logo and the company’s founders – Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

Mercedes Benz logo symbolizes the three different directions the company was taking when manufacturing transport means for air, water and land. It also resembles a steering wheel and along with its silver colour it makes this car to be a desirable target for many mortals.
The current corporate logo of CBC – Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is actually a simplified version of the previous logo used between 1974 and 1992. It is now made up of only 13 circular sections, as opposed to 25 in the previous logo. It is said to improve its “visibility on analogue television screens”.
CTV’s logo for Canadian Television managed to capture and perfectly utilize the natural shapes of each of the letters: “C” does have a circular shape, “T” fits the square to a ‘t’, and of course “V” is the triangle. What a simple but brilliant concept, that was designed already back in 1966.

8. Infinity / Star

If you run out of geometric shapes to use for your logo designs, how about trying out such imposing symbols and shapes such are infinity and star. Take a look at how Fujitsu, Infinity Systems and Texaco (“the lone star of Texas”) have successfully integrated them into their logo designs.

So what do you think of the role Geometry plays in design?

Have you ever wished to have more than 24 hours in a day, have you ever felt that your head is about to explode as you’re trying to assign at least a few check marks to your To Do list? Have you tried every trick in a book on how to manage time but still can’t quite tame this beast?

Despair no more – the help is on its way, the real solutions from real life time management gurus who unveil their secrets to one of the most challenging problems that most of us struggle with. These 33 time management strategies, tips and techniques will cure every workaholic in the world, will motivate any procrastinator and encourage the utmost pessimist to get things done in no time and still have time left to enjoy life.

Thank you everyone who participated in this group writing project. Now learn from each other how to better manage your time, how to organize your day in a more efficient way, link to each other and become friends with oh, so elusive but wise, His Majesty Time.

1. All For Time and Time For All: The 10 Commandments of Time Management by Simonne
   Don’t wait for things to become urgent before attending to them, don’t just make but also be flexible enough to break your To Do list, learn to say “no” when resources are limited.
2. Lessons in Time Management by Em Dy
   Start early and on time, end on time and most importantly respect other people’s time
3. Guru Natalie weighs in on Time Management by Natalie
   Become a “creature of habit”, use your email software efficiently by flagging your emails according to their urgency. Are you a graphic designer – then visually arrange the job folders in your “toast rack”.
4. 9 Reasons to Wake Up Early by Y.Graf
   This article was posted on the blog that’s dedicated to HowToWakeUpEarly, so trust the writer who urges you to exercise your body, mind and beat the morning traffic by getting up earlier than others.
5. Time Management For Bloggers and Photographers by Brian
   If you’re looking for a ready-to-use formula to an efficient organization of your daily activities, this post comes with the actually working schedule from one busy blogger, photographer, father and husband.
6. Manage time by sorting your blog comments in 6 ways by Bes
   If you are or want to be a successful blogger, you must be spending a good chunk of your daily blogging activities in reading, replying to comments on your blog and commenting on others. This article will teach you how to stay on top of your comments in a most efficient way.
7. My Troubles With Time Management by Ronald
   Most probably this post won’t teach you how to manage your time wisely, but it will, however, make you feel a hundred times better for not being the only one who has troubles with managing Time.
8. It’s URGENT, Urgent I say… but is it? by Marques
   Divide your tasks into four essential categories, and define them as Urgent and Important, Not Urgent but Important, Urgent but not Important, and Not Urgent and Not Important, add to it a “set of Goals in your mind” and you’re on your way to a better time management.
9. Time Management: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Jenny Mcb
   Sometimes all you need to manage your time is a communication with your spouse/partner, a full freezer, a Palm and a laid back attitude.
10. Time Management – Don’t put Everything off until later by TeaMouse
    Other times a few simple things like Slow Cooker, Dishwasher, Front loading washer, and family members who pitch in with all of the household chores, will make your life much easier.
11. 8 Work At Home Time Management Strategies by Char
    Organize “Sunday night strategy session” to plan for the week, get up before your other family members, divide your To Do list into personal and work, set up your work hours and stick to them, outsource where possible.
12. Time, Time, Time by WG
    In order to get things done you need “routines and schedules and lists” and “outside help”. Set clear expectations and plan ahead when possible.
13. Thoughts On Managing A Precious Resource by Ajay
    Write everything down, work smart, multi-task creatively, avoid classic time wasters, declare “Me” time, make up for lack of time.
14. Time Management – tackling K2
    If you’re a passionate perfectionist who places “the utmost of importance on each task”, then your salvation is the realization of your greatest strengths and weakness. Prioritize the tasks and tranquilize.
15. Time Management Tips for Using Email
    These tips come from none other but Daniel Scocco, the founder of DailyBlogTips and DailyWritingTips. Despite writing for several blogs, starting from InnovationZen, he always finds time to reply to each and every email that he gets on a daily basis. His secret? Read to find out.
16. Stress Can Be Good by Lauren Marie
    Identify tasks as necessary and/or immediate, “Priority Two”, more long-term, and the one that cat can be delegated to others. The important thing to keep in mind is to “take time to breathe and realize what is truly important in life”.
17. Secrets To Successful Time Management by Gleb Reys
    Pick your priorities, most important tasks and regularly review them all. Learn how to plan and block your time.
18. 3 simple time management tips by Carey
    Yes, if you come to think of it – Time Management is not a rocket science, all you need to learn is how to prioritize, delegate and say “no”.
19. How I manage time between blogging and studies by Shankar
    Check out how a busy student successfully manages his studies with blogging, by rising early and dividing bigger tasks into smaller ones. Of course, cutting down on instant messaging and Wordpress theme tweaking helps a great deal.
20. Better living through sticky notes by Lisa
    When everything else fails and you feel you’re losing a grip on time, buy a stack of stickies and stick them with your to-do tasks on everything, everywhere and everyone.
21. How I Manage My Time by Keith
    A sneak peek into the daily life of a busy programmer and a plugin writer, who mastered the art of a proper schedule.
22. 6 Essential Time Management Strategies by Randa
    Don’t waste time, work everywhere and anywhere, carry a notebook and keep a calendar, once again – break tasks into small bits and learn to say “no”.
23. Time Management: Managing Large Multi-User Projects by Jennifer
    Have you ever used Basecamp? No, then you should give it a try. It’s a web-based multi-user project management application that will make life juggling multiple projects much easier. Read the article to learn how it works.
24. A Routine Shall Set You Free by Brooke
    Do you think that a routine kills freedom and motivation? Think again. This article will teach you how to be “more free while living within a routine”.
25. Supercharge Your Job Search by Saving Time by Jacob
    “Job hunting is a full-time effort. Unless you’re careful, you might be working overtime.” Learn how to make it seem like a part-time.
26. Time Makes Me Cuckoo by Shelley
    Does it seem to others that you’re a very organized person, managing to handle all those numerous activities and things that you do, when you’re actually running out of time, struggling to keep the structure up? Then this article is for you, it will show you how not only look but also be organized.
27. 11 Time Management Tips – How I manage Work and Blog by Ashish
    Make your own bloggers toolkit and have a blog management day – these are only two of the helpful tips from a successful part-time blogger.
28. Simple Tips for Managing Time by Pearl
    Organize your stuff online with applications like Backpack and Stickies, process similar tasks at once, make reading your RSS feeds and commenting a part of your schedule, review your priorities and re-arrange the to do list if needed. Wait, there’s more… but you have to visit the article to find out.
29. Strategies for Effective Time Management by Janie
    Learn how to resist the urge to procrastinate but remain flexible, prioritize and work quickly and efficiently
30. Time management: the un-techniques by Peter
    If you’re like me, you’ll be relieved to find out that it’s not necessary to write everything down to keep track of your daily tasks. How that works, read the article to find out.
31. dIstressed or dEstressed? by Em Dy
    Are you stressed? Then it’s important to distress. Find out the results of a survey on how people get distressed.
32. Freelancing And Time Management by Tara
    These are one of those timeless answers to eternal questions from freelancers on how to better manage their time.
33. Internet Is The Devil In Disguise by Vivien
    How can we get any work done if there’s this spider with many heads called Internet that’s luring us into its web and eating our time? Well, you just have to read this last strategy to find out.

If you’ve learned something today, and found those strategies working for you, give them all the social love you have – digg them, stumble, flag on reddit and call them del.icio.us.

The community of readers plays an essential role in shaping up a blog. It often gives the blog a direction it never had before, it makes the blogger to be responsible for the quality and the content of the articles posted on the site. Many bloggers confess that they draw inspiration from their readers.

So how do you create a community that will inspire you, how do you build lasting relationships with your readers that can evolve into something bigger than a formal blogger-reader connection?

1. Get To Know Your Readers

I was going through the archives on my blog, trying to determine when did I start getting all those insightful comments and regular readers of Inspiration Bit. As soon as I started getting some interaction on my blog (within the first couple weeks of blogging), I immediately wanted to know more about my readers and connect with them. There are many different ways to do so, you don’t have to do them all at once, or with every reader, find the way that you feel comfortable with and go for it:

• write a post and ask your readers to tell a little bit about themselves
• Spend more than just a few seconds on your commentor’s website
• Comment on your new reader’s site after moderating his/her first comment on your blog. You may not become their regular reader, but that first connection, a simple Hello, can be very important.
• Send an email, with something more than a ‘Thank you’ note. Perhaps, ask some questions about their site or the topics that they cover, or compliment on their site’s layout.
• No matter what you choose to learn more about your readers, be absolutely sincere with them in your comments, your posts, your emails. Remember, if you can sense a fake tone in your words and actions, they can “smell” it too.

2. Engage Your Readers

You don’t have to do it with every article you write, but from time to time pose questions to your readers, ask their opinion about the topics you write about, engage them into conversations. Sometimes readers are too shy to comment, but you can encourage them to do so with your sincere questions and interest in their opinion.

It should be a common sense by now, that you should try your best to reply to as many comments on your blog, as you can. Don’t you like when other bloggers reply to your comments? It’s that simple: treat your readers the way you want and like to be treated as a reader.

However, don’t just reply to your readers’ comments with a plain Thank you. They’ve already initiated a conversation by expressing their opinion on your post’s subject matter. Carry on with that conversation, interact with them.

3. Accept and even invite a constructive criticism

You can’t expect everyone to agree with you, your likes or dislikes. Sometimes you would get some not-so-flattering comments. You can agree or disagree with your readers, but never insult nor attack them personally. You can argue with what has been said, but not who said it.

4. Be confident, but Be humble

You must be confident in your skills (blogging, writing, designing, coding), be convincing about the topics you write about, but don’t be obnoxious. You might be expert in one field, but fail in others, don’t assume that you know everything there is to know about topics you specialize in. Don’t think that readers owe you their comments or time simply because you spend time writing for them, perhaps teaching them. Don’t preach your readers, but guide them.

Be humble. There’s no need in drilling into your readers how smart or funny you are, they can judge themselves.

5. Show your human side

Don’t be afraid to show your human side. We are all still humans in this limitless blogiverse, not some blogorobots. If you have doubts in anything, feel free to ask your readers for help or advice.

Do not hesitate to show your funny side, but don’t try being funny either. Everyone appreciates a good sense of humour if you have one. Inject a bit of humour not only to your articles but to the comments you leave on other blogs. One of my readers started reading my blogs and later became my friend because he found my comments on his blog amusing, and he emailed me personally to thank for not being afraid to add some humour to my comments.

6. Give back to your readers

Everyone loves contests and competitions. When I participated in the Reader Appreciation Week organized by RA Project I had no idea what a hard work it is to run different contests every day of the week, but how much fun it is for everyone, especially for your readers. Don’t limit your interaction with readers only to contests. Organize competitions, launch group writing projects. Everyone wins in the end, there are no losers when people are getting together to share their experience, compete and take on challenges.

I’m entering this post to Daniel’s group writing project. If I win, I’ll monetize my next group writing project as well, and share the money with you all. However, there is still time left to participate in my group writing project: Time Management. What you’ll get is something that money can’t buy – time management tips from real life gurus.

Talk about your readers in your posts, link to your readers’ sites. Introduce your loyal readers to regular visitors of your site, promote their sites, their projects. Contribute to the discussions on your readers’ blogs. If the Internet is a network of computers, the blogiverse is the network of people. By building your network, you’ll be expanding your blog’s community.

7. Inspire Your Readers

You don’t have to name your blog Inspiration Bit to inspire your readers. Inspire them with your writing, excite them with your topics, motivate them with your conversations, talk about what inspires you and share your excitement with them.

8. Be irresistible

I remember back in school there was this guy in my class who had the most contagious laughter I’ve ever heard in my life. You just couldn’t resist him when he was laughing out loud, he would make you not just smile, but laugh with him.

That’s the secret ingredient in the successful recipe for building a loyal following – be irresistible, find what makes you enticing and different, what is your magnet in luring people to you. Make your readers to want more from you – more stories, more humour, more arguments, more help, more of You.

I’ve probably missed out on some other important pieces in the relationships puzzle, but I’ll let my readers to fill in for me. What do you think are the essential blocks in building lasting relationships with your blog’s readers?

Thank you everyone who participated in this group writing project. Now, enjoy each others sources of inspiration, link to each other and make the world to be an inspiring place to live in.

1. 5 Sources Of Inspiration in Photography by Brian Auer
   Inspired by accomplishments of mankind (skyscrapers, bridges), beauty of nature, other photographers, challenges (photography contests, setting restrictions to get unconventional), children.
2. Seeing Life Through The Eyes Of Inspiration by Andrew Rickmann
   Inspired by music, art, problem solving and understanding, newness, progression, desire to be able to contribute.
3. Sources Of Inspiration For Your Blog by Simonne Matthew
   Inspired by internal dialogue (“shift your attention towards your mind”), surmounted challenges, poetry, love, children, interaction.
4. Inspiration For Blogging by Ronald Huereca
   Inspired and motivated by conversation, by readers who encourage to keep going, “stay opinionated and frank”.
5. Webmaster Blog Inspiration by Lee Robertson
   Inspiration for blogging is to share ideas, knowledge and “help others with their websites and blogs”.
6. Reliable Sources Of Inspiration for Inspiration Bit by Vivien
   Relying on Sleeping Kingdom to sort the ideas and create a clear picture, find a perfect solution. Motivated by the child to boost the confidence and get re-charged.
7. Inspiration For Design And Advertising by Tara
   Get inspired by word association and playing on words, find ideas in images, look “at something in a different way”, using metaphors.
8. Finding Inspiration At The Top Of A Ladder by Rory
   Allow the mind to “freely to wander”, relax in the bath, until Eureka! hits you, just “don’t forget to take your notebook” everywhere you go.
9. Frustration Is A Source of Inspiration by Bes
   Frustration results in a lot of thinking, inspiring the thoughts of reason to shape up the blog.
10. Graphic Designer’s Snapshots of Inspiration by Lauren Krause
    Keep a design scrapbook, discover antique shops, clear your mind with yoga, think outside the box and brainstorm.
11. Sources Of Inspiration For A Young Blogger by Shankar Ganesh
    Inspired by people and personalities, dreams and quotes.
12. Get your creativity back: the old fashion way by Mirko
    Clean up your working space, go jogging, go for a drink with your friends, be happy.
13. Storyteller’s Muse by Shelly
    Don’t force the Muse but entice her by having a set of “prompt cards”, reading, doing something mindless. Make a date with yourself – just You and your Muse.
14. What Inspires A Graphic Designer by David Airey
    Inspired by the environment (“every visual object can be interpreted into graphic design”), people of the world, the design process from start to finish.
15. Defining Inspiration by Jenny MCB
    Figure out what you want to do and then do it, be ready to make changes in your life. “Inspiration comes from within”.
16. Sources Of Inspiration for Observers by Pearl
    Inspired by good music, reading how others achieved success, overcame an obstacle, Rudyard Kipling’s poem “IF”.
17. A Tribute To All Mothers by Jacklyn
    Inspired, encouraged and motivated by mother’s precious love.
18. Teaching, Inspiration, and Rock‘n Roll by Damien Riley
    Focus on the things that you “truly enjoy: guitar, art, poetry, reading, songwriting, nature” and bridge your passions with others.
19. Sources Of Inspiration From DailyBlogTips – interview with Daniel Scocco
    “Keep your radar on through out the day”, carry a notebook everywhere you go, learn how to identify all those sources of inspiration that surround us.
20. Inspiration From Your Future Self by Kate Hudson
    “I want my future self to look back and smile, knowing it was worth it”. Inspired by exciting lives of older people who traveled the world, took chances and had fun “along their journey”.
21. The Roots Of Inspiration by Isabella Mori
    Everything is connected and becomes a source of inspiration. It’s all about “being willing to make connections”. Serendipity is a big part of inspiration.
22. Please God, Bless The Mess by Rosemarie
    “Writing is my calling”. Sharing with others experiences, losses and successes.
23. Inspired To Write by Marcia
    Inspiration comes from “internal conversation”. Tune into that conversation to see if it’s inspiring “enough to bring that conversation out”.
24. Inspired By One Minute Miracle by Lewis Bass
    Inspired by quick thoughts or quotes, great outdoors, helping other, by feeling the presence of the Creator.
25. Motivation And Inspiration for A Hobbyist by Joey
    Inspired by interaction with readers, desire to be helpful and informative, “desire to help perpetuate baseball card collecting”.
26. Postcards Of Inspiration by Paulie
    Digital photography as a hobby, walking, hiking and writing about the personal experience.
27. The Little Successes Along The Way by Carolyn Manning
    Inspiration comes from “the incomparable satisfaction waiting at the end of each small task”.
28. The Really Simple Domino Effect by Hamelife
    Inspired by Other People’s Blogs. “Something you read can flick the switch in your mind – one thought can lead to another – and a new article is born. Clickety, clickety, clickety…”
29. Questioning Inspiration by Nanny Molly
    Have a “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” attitude in life, deny the existence of stress and passionless mood.
30. Inspiration or Despair That is the Question by Joey
    Find inspiration from others, from their encouragement and faith in you, from their support.
31. Sources Of Inspiration For Writing by Yvonne Russell
    Inspired by people, by quiet achievers, by family, by the learning, “by the wonder of the interactive blogosphere”.
32. Life on Hysteria Lane by The Rock Chick
    Inspiration that derives “from listening to and observing other people”. Get a cure for your creative block by spending “five minutes max in any public place”.
33. Inspired By People by Jacob Share
    Inspired by five influential bloggers who have insight, attitude, motivational skills, expertise and dedication.
34. They Showed Me How To Find Release by Carolyn
    Inspired by the person “who succumbed to an addiction, found release, and works through varying degrees of daily struggle toward another victory”.
35. Crazy Wisdom Inspiration by Pamm
    Inspired by Death. “Because Death gently and lovingly reminds me of Life. Life Right Now.”
36. Sources Of Inspiration For Life and Blogging by Dj Flush
    Inspired by colors, love, technology, paranormality, life and death.
37. What Inspires A Poet by ebele (via email)
    

    What inspires me? Creativity. It’s my No1 religion. It has saved me MANY times – whether it’s writing a poem, taking a picture or painting – doesn’t matter how ‘good’ it is. Recently, I had a lot on my mind, was feeling extremely frustrated, couldn’t sleep, refused to sleep – at 3am, I turned my back on my computer (which was also playing up, by the way), sat down on the floor & started drawing with colouring pencils. 5 minutes into it, the stress had lifted.
    Creativity & being creative is my life-blood. I don’t know who or where I’d be without it.

I would appreciate if you don’t duplicate the entire content of this list, but instead read those submissions yourself and link to your favourite ones (or all of them) by outlining the gist of the source from your own perspective.

Thanks again to all participants. I’m overwhelmed with the response received by my first group writing project as well as by the time I spent putting this list together :-)
Right now I feel amazingly inspired but unfortunately can hardly keep my eyes open to jot down all those ideas and sparks in my head.

The first 6 bits of fonts on this list are considered “web-safe” – they’re supported by all major browsers on any platform. The fonts in the following 2 bits come pre-installed on most but not all systems. The fonts in the last 8 bits are mainly used for decorative purposes, and implemented on the Web as sIFR or saved as images.

1. Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Arial
   Helvetica was created by Swiss designers 50 years ago, Helvetica is one of the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. Many well-known companies like American Airlines, Lufthansa, Toyota chose this font in their branding. There were so many variations of Helvetica that in 1983 Linotype released Helvetica Neue by redrawing the entire Helvetica family in a more structurally organized fashion. Many consider Arial, designed almost 30 years after Helvetica, to be a cheap imitation of Helvetica. But it turns out that Arial has more similarities with Univers than Helvetica.
   
   
2. Verdana was designed specifically for Microsoft in 1996 with a purpose of being readable at small sizes on a screen. The absence of serifs, wide proportions and loose letter-spacing make this font extremely legible for web sites.
   
3. Georgia -another font that was ordered by Microsoft in 1993 which bears lots of similarities with Times New Roman, but substantially larger. It works really well at small and big sizes, and is often chosen by web designers as a substitute to the so overused Times New Roman.
   
4. Trebuchet MS – once again Microsoft steps in and orders another “good web design font” in 1996. It works really well when used for big headers (btw, I’m using this type on my blog).
   
5. Century Gothic – a so-called “geometric” sans-serif font designed in 1991, has many similarities with Avant Garde Gothic. It works well for the headers, but I wouldn’t recommend to use this font for the large chunks of body text.
   
6. Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande – Lucida Grande is the font that’s used throughout Mac OS, whereas Lucida Sans Unicode is a similar Windows font. Both fonts belong to the “humanist” sans-serif type which is the most calligraphic of all typefaces in the sans-serif family.
   
7. Palatino – designed by Hermann Zapf in 1948 with an old style typeface look inspired by the Renaissance. Decades later Microsoft distributed a clear imitation of this font in a form of Book Antiqua originated by Monotype.
   
8. Garamond, Baskerville, Caslon – these are the oldest typefaces on this list.
   Garamond was commissioned for the French king in 1540 and was quickly adopted by many for printing. However, the modern version of this type was popularized by Apple. It was used in the hardcover editions of Harry Potter and the short history of the type is mentioned on the last page of the book:

   The text was set in 12-point Adobe Garamond, a typeface based on the sixteenth-century type designs of Claude Garamond, redrawn by Robert Slimbach in 1989

   
   Baskerville – designed by John Baskerville in 1757 with an intention to improve the legibility of Caslon typeface designed by William Caslon.
   
   

9. Univers Condensed, Linotype Univers – Univers, often confused with Helvetica, was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1956. Frutiger is famous for his unique typeface classification system. Univers is exceptionally legible at great distances, that is why it was chosen by new Swiss International Air Lines, Deutsche Bank and for the keycaps on many Apple keyboards.
   
10. Myriad Pro – designed specifically for Adobe Systems in early nineties. Since 2002 Myriad has become Apple’s corporate font, replacing Apple Garamond. Myriad works well both for print and web typography.
    
11. Rockwell – falls under the slab serif classification, where “the serifs are unbracketed and similar in weight to the horizontal strokes of the letters”. It used primarily for the decorative purposes rather than for the lengthy body text.
    
12. Warnock Pro – named after John Warnock, the co-founder of Adobe Systems Inc. It quickly became one of the most favorable typefaces designed in the XXI century. It’s included with Adobe CS (which is really nice).
    
13. FF DIN – “DIN” stands for “Deutsche Industrie Norm” translated as German Industry Standard, it was designed in 1995 by a Dutch designer in Hamburg – hence such a modern look.
    
14. Gotham – another typeface designed in XXI century. Gotham’s geometric forms and a large x-height make it extremely readable at small sizes.
    
15. Frutiger – another typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger, this time he created it specifically for the newly built Charles De Gaulle International Airport in 1968. Surprisingly, it took 7 years for the designer to finally complete the work. Wikipedia states that “It is currently the best-selling typeface of the Linotype foundry”.
    
16. Dax Regular – one of the newest typefaces of the XXI century, but it already became very popular in advertising and marketing. It’s extensively used by UPS, it is also used in the branding of the New Democratic Party of Canada (wow, smart move, NDP :-))
    

So here you go – hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading a bit of history on some of the most popular typefaces favoured by many modern web designers. What is your favourite font on this list? What other fonts you enjoy working with and why?