Tagtypography

Favorite Letters of the Alphabet

Do you have a favorite letter? The sound or typeface varieties of a letter can really catch us. For more about the visual and emotional properties of various letters, check out Simon Garfield’s book about fonts, Just My Type. Grant also...

Scoot, Scoot, Bandicoot

Howdy! Recently we talked about why some puns seem clever, while others fall flat as a pancake. Also, what’s the difference between “luggage” and “baggage”? What do you call someone who doesn’t eat fish? Plus, a...

How Many Spaces?

How many spaces go after a period? Your schoolteacher may have taught you to use two, but others strongly disagree. This is part of a complete episode.

Typefaces in History

Pity the poor typeface designer, always seeing anachronisms in movies and television. Imagine how painful it must be watching a World War II movie only to see a document printed in Snell Roundhand Bold, a font invented in 1972. Here’s typeface...

Headline Capitalization

A reader of The Atlantic magazine is surprised to find that they’re not capitalizing letters in headlines the way they used to. This is part of a complete episode.

Etymology of Rubric

The word rubric derives from a Latin word for “red.” Originally, it referred to red letters used as section headings in religious texts and the like. Rubric has since become a term used in modern educational jargon, as in grading rubric...