With the addition of the Open Type format to fonts, the features are giving designers greater control over type than we have had since phototypesetting. The downside of this is that some of us have forgotten the nuances that differentiate great type from good type. I was working with a table of numbers today and got frustrated as my numbers were falling apart on me. Knowing that greater control of the type was in the Character palette (working in InDesign CS3) I started digging in the Open Type features of the font. The terms looked familiar, Proportional Oldstyle, Tabular Oldstyle, Proportional Lining … but I needed a refresh.
Many type foundries keep pretty useful blogs. I have found the foundry FontShop to keep a good repository of tips of the trade. The explanation of when to use each of these number styles is found here, and you can view other very helpful tips on FontShop’s blog at the link below:
That Erik Spiekermann site is awesome. Thanks Josh!