Of all the aspects of design, typography has been an element that I knew very little about before attending a Media Design program at Southeast Tech. Most, as I did, think of typography as just some text. But it’s so much more; the style, size, and shape of a font family set the stage for the total design’s mood or message. The following are a few of the basic points of managing typography that I thought I’d pass on.
So let’s say you want to use a specific Adobe font within an Adobe application. The great thing with all Adobe applications is that the font menus are similar when choosing typefaces. In previous editions of Adobe products, the font menu also had a button “Add Fonts from Typekit” in the upper right corner. To currently access additional Adobe fonts, access the Adobe Creative Cloud, click the Font tab, and press the “Browse more fonts” button. From there, you have the option to set up filters to make your search more specific to your needs.
Once you find a typeface, you’ll have the option to activate the complete font family or individual members.
So let’s say you want to use a font from an online site, like DaFont.com. When you press the download button, the font file(s) are placed in your Downloads folder.
Locate the font file in Downloads, and double click on it. A “Font Book” window, which contains the character sets for the font, will appear. In the lower right corner, press the “Install Font” button.
The next time you access the font menu in an Adobe product, the font will appear in the font menu list. (Font Book is a font management tool for Macs.)
