Gordie here for the first time on the Old Hat Blog-o-Rama. First of all, let me start by saying how thrilled I am to be a part of the Old Hat squad. This places rocks the house.

As some of you may or may not know, I am a self-titled Font Geek, so that will be the subject of today’s blog. Now I know a lot of you are wondering, “hey Gordie, what’s the difference between a font and a typeface?”

I’m glad you asked.

A typeface is the design of the overall style of a character set. It also refers to back to the days of Ye Olde Printing Press™ where type was arranged with metal blocks — the type “face” was the actual raised portion of the block of type that made the impression of the character on paper. A font, on the other hand, is the collection of characters (also known as “glyphs”) to be used in typesetting of a particular typeface. One font contains one weight and style of a typeface. For example, when one thinks of Helvetica, that usually includes the designs of Helvetica Bold, Oblique (or Italic), Roman, Condensed, etc. All these weights and styles share the common design styling of the typeface. However, Helvetica Bold Condensed is one font, just as Helvetica Light Oblique is another font.

So there you have it, now go forth and spread your newfound type knowledge!

In addition to sharing that snippet of knowledge with all of our readers, I thought I would share some great type resources. Of course you can find a multitude of great books at your local library, Amazon.com, or your local bookstore, but I thought I would make it easy with some great links on the webbernettubes.

• TYPE FOUNDRIES

Hoefler & Frere-Jones — the makers of the now ubiquitous Gotham (perhaps the new Helvetica?), H & F-J have produced custom type for numerous organizations, and their commercially available typefaces are highly sought after by designers. They remain to this day my favorite type foundry. Check ‘em out here.

House Industries — the designers behind Neutraface as well as a host of other high quality retro typefaces. Their blog is highly entertaining. See more here.

Process Type Foundry — have you seen the typeface used by Chevy? Seen the same face used by NBC? That would be Klavika, made by the fine type designers at Process Type Foundry. Check them out here.

FontSmith — a UK type foundry with some excellent contemporary typefaces. More of their work here.

• TYPE WEBSITES

MyFonts.com — I love What the Font, great for identifying fonts that are an exact (or very close) match to a screenshot of a type conundrum. They also have loads of great fonts for sale.

DaFont.com — for those of you not too keen on paying for typefaces, DaFont.com has a great collection of free, high-quality typefaces.

iLoveTypography.com — a great website for all things type, they have a great weekly article all about fonts in art and life. Additionally, they have some excellent articles on type design as well loads of links.

Typophile.com — another great online community of people interested in and working in typography.

Smashingmagazine.com — not exclusive to type, but they have some great links to articles showcasing typography as well as a great collection of free fonts.

So there you have it. Go forth and learn, purchase, and download all that your heart desires. Until next time!

Hey everyone! Today I’ve got some really cool sites to check out for new typography. Sometimes the perfect solution to whatever design problems you may be having is a new font. We’re constantly getting new fonts here at Old Hat and passing them around the office. Mostly I stick to the freeby sites like dafont, (there’s a bunch of other sites out there as well) but I’m definitely a fan of the following type houses’ work.

• First up is one of my personal favorites, House Industries. They have some very cool fonts that you can’t get anywhere else and you can try them out with their LetterSetter to see how they’ll look with your text. They’re also affordable and well worth the prices, in my opinion. Check ‘em out here

• If money is no object then go by the Hoefler & Frere-Jones site and see some of the original fonts they produce. These guys are some of the more famous in the biz. They’ve done custom typefaces for Rolling Stone Magazine, Esquire, and many others. They’re stuff isn’t cheap, but it’s as good as you can get. Here’s the link.

That’s all for today. Make sure to swing by tomorrow for Photo Wednesday. I’ve got a ton of cool new photographers for you to check out this week, so stay tuned!