Fluid Web Typography: A Short Guide by Jason Cranford

Why does typography matter? What is Web typography? Type design is an act of plagiarism in itself—you basically recreate the flesh of the same skeleton. Limits of Webfont Services… Do not control font name Do not control font filesPrice often a yearly licenseBrowser support varies. Choose for compatibility… Always include webfont, Web safe, core web, and generic typefaces in your font stack. Choose for consistency. Select understudy fonts with similar widths and kerning to the primary font. Choose for style. Select fonts with bold, italic, and bold italic versions.

Jason Cranford Teague

SXSW 2010 Austin, TX | 13 March 2010

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WHY Typography Matters

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If I say…

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Why I Write

By DORIANNE LAUX on 2.08.10

I have recently begun to think of writing as what Susan Sontag calls “a

wisdom project” in her forward to Another Beauty, a collection of

autobiographical essays by the great Polish poet Adam Zagajewski.

“…autobiography is an occasion to purge oneself of vanity,

while advancing the project of self understanding—call it the

wisdom project—which is never completed, however long the

life.”

I am still hard at work on this project of the self The solitary self, as well

as the self in relation to the world and the unknown universe we swirl

around in, uncertain of our purpose or future When I wrote the poems

that would become my first book, I didn’t think of it as a book, but rather

as a need to understand the basic questions that all human beings ask:

Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? What is beauty? Why is

there suffering? Where is truth? These questions would arise in me in the

form of poems, and in making the poems into a collection, I tried to

arrange them in a shape, find a path for them to travel to make clearer

those questions I write to know the questions

Poem after poem, book after book, the ante is upped I think this could be

why it takes so long between books The poet is working harder each time

to go deeper, farther, layering on or stripping away to find the exact color

or texture, the core or the root, the frail light or the watery dark I write to

work things out I write to concentrate, to feel a sense of purpose rise up

in me I enjoy the struggle of making a new object to present to the world,

a gift made from scratch—whole, unique, edible as bread And I want that

gift to travel well, packed into an old boat on calm water or hidden inside

a greased body diving into a blue pool, a sleek arrow that leaves a

feathered silence and wonder in its wake I like moving, word by word,

toward a sense of discovery, toward an awareness of self—a curious,

energetic, intelligent, sacred, baffling, depthful, heartful self I work to

find my subject, something I can sink my teeth into I live for that flaring

up of language, when the words actually carry me, envelope me, grip me

And all the above is why I read poetry, to hear the truth, spoken harshly

or whispered into my ear, to see more clearly the world’s beauty and

sadness, to be lifted up and torn down, to be remade, by language, to

become larger, swollen with life

I write to add my voice to the sum of voices, to be part of the choir I write

to be one sequin among the shimmering others, hanging by a thread from

the evening gown of the world I write to remember I write to forget

myself, to be so completely immersed in the will of the poem that when I

look up from the page I can still smell the smoke from the house burning

in my brain I write to destroy the blank page, unravel the ink, use up what

I’ve been given and give it away I write to make the trees shiver at the

sliver of sun slipping down the axe blade’s silver lip I write to hurt myself

again, to dip my fingertip into the encrusted pool of the wound I write to

become someone else, that better, smarter self that lives inside my

dumbstruck twin I write to invite the voices in, to watch the angel

wrestle, to feel the devil gather on its haunches and rise I write to hear

myself breathing I write to be doing something while I wait to be called to

my appointment with death I write to be done writing I write because

writing is fun

Editor’s Note: This short essay is from Red Thread, Gold Thread: The Poet’s Voice ananthology edited by Alan Cohen It is a book ofessays by poets on how they came to poetryand why they practice their art Funds fromthe book are going toward the continuation ofthe annual Power of Poetry Festival held inLogan, Ohio since 2002 You can buy the bookhere

topics: columnists

1 COMMENT

Jessie Carty said on 2.09.10 at 12:20pm:

Terrific essay, I love the quote and how Dorianne expounds off of that

Thanks for sharing

Comment   Textile permitted

The editors reserve the right to delete comments that areoff-topic, inflammatory, or anonymous

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Dorianne Laux is the author of four

books of poetry and co-author of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry She hasbeen the recipient of the Oregon BookAward and was short-listed for theLenore Marshall Poetry Prize She lives

in Raleigh, North Carolina where she teaches poetry at NorthCarolina State University For more, go to DorianneLaux.com

Facts About the Moon

Buy from POWELLSBuy from INDIEBOUND

In her powerful fourth collection,Dorianne Laux once again strikes firefrom neighborhood moments: a quietstreet at dusk, a pool hall, a bare tree.Focusing on the grace of workingpeople, she captures the pain and beauty of women in alltheir variety, caught in the “lunar pull” of our time more »

Dorianne Laux reads Facts About the

Moon

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djzinc that chat roulette thing is raw

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2010 - #p52 - loose thoughts - ramblings

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11 Arial Rounded MT Bold bold 3-Likely

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14 Baskerville bold, italic, bold/italic 2-Almost Certain

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