I have a client who wants me to do a video with this kind of a look, featuring all different fonts and different colors.
Are there any tips, tricks, techniques and/or secrets to make this work. Any advice? Fonts are my Kryptonite to begin with. :(
Perhaps use two font families and utilize different weights within. this would allow you to limit it to two main fonts:
Thrift - one serif is the - light/thin sans new - medium sans black - bold/black sans
That would at least give it some cohesion.
While you need to maintain left to right & top to bottom reading sequence, using this kind of approach allows you to treat text layout more as a composition of shapes and colours.
Title sequences might help you get more of a feel for it.
Or go check out some old jazz album covers. http://www.gokudo.co.jp/Record/BlueNote2/index.htm
Thanks.
Thanks. It turns out to be really hard. I'm happiest with the ones I've made with the fewest fonts and colors.
The client, fortunately, can't tell the difference between what I'm doing and what a real designer would do, so it's all good.
The only difference between you and a "real designer" is that you live in Kansas and all real designers live in major metros. Haven't you been paying attention.
That, and I can't recognize Cooper Black at a glance.
Originally posted by Candy Beard
That, and I can't recognize Cooper Black at a glance.
Remember Ari's old shocker sig? That's CB.
If you need font inspiration, hit t26.com. They came out when I was back in college—back when Emigre was IT, lol—and I think that they have killer stuff.
God bless you Ari, I fucking hate that font. 
Am I the only one here bothered that the Twentynine Ways To Stay Creative graphic has absolutely terrible kerning on it?
Of course not.
This seems as good a place as any to ask - is there a difference between Kerning and Tracking? I always just call it Kerning but given I have 0 formal training in this stuff I have no clue what the correct term is.
Kerning is between characters, like how you slightly overlap "AV" or "ot". Technically that should be a part of the font face design presets.
Tracking is when you adjust the overall space on a line of text.
I have no formal training in this either FWIW.
If you really want the dirt on this sort of thing I suggest you pick up an old book on hand lettering - before computers, most print ads were hand lettered, even the copy text. There are very specific rules about how to structure & space individual letters.
Could you imagine doing this by hand? That's how it was done back in the day.
http://www.typetheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/christmasad05_01-481x613.jpg
Despite the typographic appearance, the headline is hand lettered. The lettering strikes a good balance between playfulness and structure. The letters rest on an irregular baseline that manages to remain balanced. Notice how the tails on each e in “Seven-Up!” vary in length making the kerning more even.
Thats more or less what my interpretation of Tracking vs Kerning was but it would seem for modern use as soon as you do Kerning you no longer have Tracking since the line as a whole would no longer be uniform. Or is there something I'm missing?
You are doing both, essentially - if you adjust the tracking on a line of text then adjust the tracking further on the individual characters, you are kerning. Think of kerning as nested tracking if that helps.
Meh seems redundant Ill just continue to use Kerning exclusively since Kerning implies Tracking while Tracking doesn't imply Kerning. Optical Kerning is good, Optical Tracking doesn't exist and I like my numbers lookin' crispy.
Even better, if you can get your hands on a copy of Lettering for Advertising, read it and have your mind expanded. Most people kern by eye but there are actually very specific rules to follow depending on the letterforms.