Daily Resources

There are some web sites that I couldn’t live (or at least work) without. I visit them multiple times in a week and they make my life much, much easier. I’ll share.

identifont.com My secret is out: Every time someone calls or emails me asking for the name of a font he’s seen (and BJ, I mean you), I go to Identifont and answer the series of questions they ask. Seven times out of ten, I find what I’m looking for (two times out of ten I know the font on sight, and the last time out of ten I try What The Font, below).

I also use Identifont to help me pick fonts for new projects (an unheralded task that the site does amazingly well). If I’m designing a logo and I know I’m looking for a serif face with a capital J that hangs below the baseline and a tilted bar on the lower case e, I choose those options and let Identifont narrow the field for me.

I also find that answering the font questions helps sharpen my eye for type. There are infinite variations of letterforms, and where I may not usually notice the shape of the lower case k junction, Identifont makes me see it.

What the Font Another great font identifying resource. This is my second line of defense (first line if I have a really great jpg or gif of the type I’m trying to figure out). I have no idea how this site works, and I don’t care. It’s totally helpful and often amazing.

Why am I spending so much time identifying fonts? 1) I’m working on a project for a company that already has an established look or identity and I want to follow their style guidelines, but no one knows what fonts were used in previous designs and 2) I’ve seen a font that is beautiful and I want to add it to my font arsenal. How geeky is that last sentence? But I stand by it.

pdfonline.com I often get files from clients that I can’t open (for example, a Publisher file and Microsoft doesn’t make Publisher for the Mac), or I can open them, but I don’t have the fonts so they display incorrectly. PDF Online is a free online application that converts MS Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, Excel, HTML, text, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, EMF, and WMF files into a PDF file and emails it to you. Easy, fast and free. Totally fabulous.

Basecamp We started using this online project management software a few months ago and now I wonder how we got along without it. Is there anything more satisfying than making a to do list, and then checking items off of it? We upload files, make lists, write messages and set milestones, and we can access our account anytime, anywhere, from any computer (of course it’s password protected). They offer a fully functional free account, but if you need more than what the free account offers (we do), there are different plans available.

I’ve shown you mine. Are there any online resources that you’d recommend?