Did you enjoy playing the color game from my previous article? Did it make you the best designer ever? Almost? If so, don't you dare stop there! Now it's time to focus on fonts!
Last week I was having a blog designed for my personal use. My designer sent over three header samples in three different fonts. I obnoxiously responded with, "These are great, but I'd really like to combine the round punctuation of Option One with the character width in Option Two and the line weight of Option Three. Know any fonts that meet this criteria?" My designer was not amused and more or less put the task back in my lap. I was soon perusing thousands of fonts and attempting Google searches like, "tall, skinny font with round punctuation and lowered middle 'E' bar" with no success.
In my font search I did eventually find what I deemed to be a suitable font selection, but I also ran across The Font Game from I Love Typography which, if nothing else, served as a fun distraction. But beyond being a fun distraction, the game became a bit more. The more I played the better I got at quickly identifying fonts by sight and name. Being able to eye-ball subtle differences in fonts (as well as becoming familiar with naming conventions) ended up helping me more quickly scout fonts to get to what I wanted for my own design purposes.
The Font Game is an iOS app for iPhones and iPads. In this timed game, you are presented with a font sample and asked to choose the name from four options. High scores can be added to Apple's Game Center. In addition to the Font Game, the app includes the Terminology Game (for learning typography lingo), The Flip Font Game (like the original font game but reversed--you're given the name of the font and choose the correct one from four samples), and the Match Game (like the memory game, but with fonts). The app isn't free, but if you're a design junkie (or aim to be one), $2 may not seem like an unfair investment to you.
Do you love The Font Game? Do you hate it? Do you have an alternate method for learning fonts? I'd love to hear from you.
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