Font Lust & Other Graphic Desires


True Confession: I sometimes spend more time on the title graphics of my blog posts and preso title slides than I do writing the darn things! It's totally probably a Photoshop Elements / PicMonkey, Comic Life addiction - but I can quit at any time! 
But it's also all part of being a Presentation Ninja and an important:  

VIRAL SECRET! A graphically hot compelling title pic with a sexy font grabs your reader AND your audience!  
Therefore it follows, that a blog, article, preso, wiki, etc. with engaging related graphics & screenshots makes it more compelling. 
Graphic Design Delights
It's difficult to teach graphic design - but there are some tips that can elevate your look without breaking your budget. Killer fonts, a cool colour scheme, & arresting images make for a banging and desirable graphic presence. I touch on these concepts in my How to be a Presentation Ninja slidedeck embedded below. (Part of the Ninja series)
Here's the back story to my dirty little secret about Font Lust. It's probably not fair to admit that I judge presentations and websites by the kind of fonts they choose. And when I see a knockout combination font lust & graphic gorgeousness I fall in visual love - hard and quick! Yes, I'm that deeply shallow.  Enter Jesse Dee. About two years ago I started stalking errr following the amazing Jesse Dee on Slideshare. What really caught my eye about his work was a super slick clean preso he did linking marketing & Lady Gaga - which I totally stole for myself and adapted it (with his blessing, of course!). I got to thinking how much that preso could be related to education marketing and branding & now it's my most requested keynote preso! \\FTW!// 
Yes, Fonts can be SEXY!
But it was also his use of this font ...this gorgeous lickable HOT font that REALLY caught my eye. I daringly wrote him asking what it was and he kindly replied that it was called. NEUTRAFACE from House Industries.

Sadly, hot can be expensive! Neutraface Display: $150.00 the whole suite is $275. But after drooling over it for years - yeah...I gave in & got it. So, expect to see it a LOT in my work! LOL
PLEASE Do NOT Use This Font!  EVER! 
OR Try to Stop the Habit, Right Now!

Don't want to spend your own $ on fonts? That's ok! Check out Da Font!

1001 Free Fonts - ugly site - gorgeous fonts!

Another great resource - I pinned it to my Graphic (Design) Desires board on Printerest 11 days ago (& thanks Matthew for reminding me in your AWEsome coment!) It's fab! Check it out!
So, what fonts should you choose? Here are some suggestions! A big thanks to Jennifer LaGarde for turning me onto Indy Pimp - it had me a the name but it kept me coming back for its sticky sick-like awesomeness!







It should come as no surprise that colour effects mood. What holds true with fashion, clothing, and interior design translates to graphic & web design, too! But how to choose?

Still can't pick a scheme? Go to ColourLovers.com and check out the "most loved" and popular palettes there!

I even made my own personalized colour palette & named it The Daring Librarian! W00t! It's FREE and it's Fun! Why not build your own palette of colours that turn you on!?

As you can probably guess from visiting this blog or going to some of my other websites:


Whatever complimentary colours float your boat! 
Now...let's talk Pics!

(ps. that font above is American Typewriter!)

Of course my favourite source for FREE images is Flickr Creative Commons! Particularly I searchAttribution Noncommercial Share Alike Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License for cool images!
Can't find just what you want? How about you animate them? This does take extra work but I have help & directions in this blog and on my Daring Tech Wiki!

For the most badass customizable images - take screen shots in Second Life! NOT for the faint of heart! It's a real tough learning curve, Second Life is!

Here's an example where I took out my pirate airship & dressed up for the "photo shoot" and the final product for the cover image our Australia speaking tour wiki. Pretty cool, huh? But you can see I'm a better dresser in SL than airship pilot, though!
Just want to get what you want? You're gonna have to

I really like iStock photo for this beacuse it was really hard to find the Ninja pics I really NEEDED! But that's ok, you're worth it! ;-)

See? How cool is this?

Now...your preso is AWESOME because you have killer fonts & arresting images! Shamelessly Share it with Slideshare!

And maybe if your preso catches the eye of the Slideshare peeps something VIRAL may happen! Check this out!

I'm still gobsmacked & reeling from the coolness of that! WOW! View the Transparency slidedeck here! Then a friend told me that Viral wasn't 100K anymore but a million! GAH! Honestly though, Slideshare is an amazing site that allows easy uploading & embedding of presentations, documents, zipcasts. I did go PRO this year using my school email addy to get an Educators discount! (look at the bottom of the table for education pricing)

Thanks for reading I hope these tips help & you also drink the graphic desire koolaid! Check out the whole preso by viewing:
How to be a Presentation Ninja
View more presentations from gwyneth jones

I invite you to comment on what are your favourite fonts & graphic DESIGN desires?
(keep it clean! LOL)
Credits & Resources:
See examples of some of my graphic design desires in this Flicrk set!

New discovery: Lost Type Co-Op by Curly Red (Obviously, I already love her!)
Comic Sans is a crime.

Comments

  1. Matthew C. WinnerApril 29, 2012 at 9:08 PM

    Oh my word. Stop what you're doing right now and visit this site:
    http://losttype.com/browse/

    Lost Type is a home to name-your-price fonts and they are GORGEOUS! (I especially love Homestead and Governor).

    Better yet, you can read what my graphic designer pal said about it on her blog here: http://curlyreddesign.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-discovery-lost-type-co-op.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. @GwynethJones - The Daring LibrarianApril 29, 2012 at 9:40 PM

    Oh yes! Thank you! I forgot to add that to the post - I had pinned that Co-op 11 days ago but I love the Curly Red post & pinned that, too! We're always on the same page!
    Cheers hon!
    ~Gwyneth

    ReplyDelete
  3. MiriamApril 29, 2012 at 11:57 PM

    For fonts, try MyFonts.com - find freebies by doing a search where price is at most $0 :-)
    Also, Google Web Fonts - make a collection and then download them.
    For colour palettes: colorschemedesigner.com and design-seeds.com are good.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ned PotterApril 30, 2012 at 5:45 AM

    Wow, mega post!

    Have you got any tips about saving PPTs as PDFs? (Or do you use Keynote?) I've only rarely tried this because when I do they tend to go a bit weird - images go a bit shonky, and sometimes text boxes 'leak' into other areas etc. Any advice..?

    ReplyDelete
  5. @GwynethJones - The Daring LibrarianApril 30, 2012 at 8:23 PM

    Yeah Ned, it's a LONG post - mostly cause of all the "slides" :-) And because I've been thinking about this one for like a MONTH!

    I don't use Keynote. I save my work as PDF to keep them from going wonky! Because I have so many unique fonts & I didn't want them to default to ARIEL. I also use images that are 1024X768 and I save the image as the background image to cement it there (but it's a super pain when you combine PPT's because you have to do it all over again)

    I went PRO on Slideshare recently & that's really been a help because when i convert my PPT's to PDF's they go UP in size sometimes by like 5 mgs.

    ANOTHER thing I do -- If I'm layering on a slide like this one
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/info_grrl/7125917627/in/photostream

    Where I have a
    • background image of black
    then a QR Code that I faded out in picture manip
    • then my avatar as a transparent PNG
    • A big layering of type - Neutraface of course!
    • and then a call out talk bubble shape

    ...well those 5 things combine to create a really big preso! So, another thing i do is I save the whole slidedeck as images and then bring in the images one by one into another slidedeck so that there's only one graphic per slide & the size goes way down!

    Hope that helps!
    ~Gwyneth

    ReplyDelete
  6. CMay 5, 2012 at 9:59 AM

    I love FontsforPeas.com for handwriting fonts. They're free to use, and I love having fonts that look like actual handwriting!

    I laughed when I saw the sign about Comic Sans. I teach elementary school, and I still DESPISE Comic Sans. I will use pretty much any other font except that one. My mentor teacher during student teaching told me she uses it because it most closely resembles the handwriting they teach the students in that school, but... I'm sorry. I just can't use it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. JodiMay 14, 2012 at 9:54 AM

    You are not alone. I luuuurve fonts. Did you see that Google Docs has added something like 450 font choices? I got sucked into that vortex for longer than I want to admit.

    ~Jodi the High School Librarian

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @GwynethJones - The Daring LibrarianDecember 19, 2013 at 4:16 AM

      Hey Jodi! They quite made my day, too! It's so embarrassing to drool over one's keyboard, yes?

      Delete
  8. UnknownDecember 7, 2013 at 9:34 AM

    HOW have I never seen your blog before?? *drools*
    I think I'm in love.

    --@8amber8

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @GwynethJones - The Daring LibrarianDecember 19, 2013 at 4:17 AM

      Thank you so much for your kind comment! You have quite made my day! SQUEE! Following you now on the Twitters!

      Delete
  9. AnonymousJune 24, 2023 at 3:55 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

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