Happy February to you, how have you been keeping? I’ve given Gorgeous a polish this month and I’d love to know what you think. It’s still quirky and written to help you learn about design, use it well in your business and encourage you to explore your creativity. On my website, you can find 150 posts with useful creative and business advice. You may know them as Tips and Tricks, they are renamed as Gorgeous Guides. Read on for ‘mini’ GET GORGEOUS tips. If you are missing font pairings, these are being developed into something rather lovely! You will find out in Gorgeous first! |
|
Northern Block is a font studio in Northumberland and Charles Dickens is the inspiration behind their new font, Fagun (a deliberate misspelling of Fagin, pictured above). Founder of Northern Block, Jonathan Hill explains that, “Alternative characters are not offered by similar typefaces, so with Fagun, I wanted to create some alternatives that would give the design a different flavour and reinforce the functionality in readable text.” GET GORGEOUS Use Fagun for long lines of text with generous margins to make the content easy on the eye, it'll keep your readers engaged. |
|
If you sign up to Creative Market, a community-generated design platform, you get a selection of free stuff each week – including one font. The design changes each week and is only available for a limited time. GET GORGEOUS Since the fonts on offer here are typically paid-for, you know you're getting better quality than most free font sites. |
|
The Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society is the largest western calligraphy association in the world and their social media feed is gorgeous! They are holding online lessons in calligraphy and modern lettering run by their Fellows and accredited tutors from January to April. I’m hoping to attend a couple of them next month. GET GORGEOUS Calligraphy can really help to connect to fonts and letter styles and I find it very therapeutic. It always improves my handwriting too! The Cult Pen Company sell reasonably priced starter kits. |
|
Black Flag is a dystopian mystery book (I worked on the book design, illustration management and website design). Author Matt Langley, a Doctor Who script editor, based his novel in the future with in-text puzzles designed to teach teen readers how to learn code. The code text was set in a monospace font. This style is designed to make reams of code easier to read and reduce eye strain. Monospace fonts give equal space to each character, for example, the letter 'l' gets as much width as 'w'. Monolisa (extract below) is a new font aimed to reduce fatigue and improve developers' productivity even further. The full set has increased character width, clear distinction and brilliant legibility, making it one of the best ones available for any developer. GET GORGEOUS If you are learning code, or editing it, try different fonts to see what works for you. It could make it easier on your eyes. |
|
1 If you love books and Great British Sewing Bee, you will want to see Esme Young, one of the judges, talk about her book, Behind the Seams. I saw her at the Cambridge Literature Festival - what a life! She’s appearing at festivals in 2023 including the Faversham Literature Festival. GET GORGEOUS Literature festivals are a great opportunity for aspiring authors to learn how to promote a book, take notes on how the author answers questions, check out presentation style and what appealed to the audience. Can you apply this to your book launch or any promotion event? 2 If you are still on Twitter (yes, me too…just!) and you love fine art, then you might like to know about Academia Aesthetics which shares fine art images from across the world. If you have the patience to deal with Substack’s relentless reminders, then their newsletter is worth signing up to as well. 3 Iron Maiden are captured in stamp form! The Royal Mail released a new set of stamps with the band’s branding and mascot. I’m not a philatelist but I have always admired stamp artwork and how the details have to be scaled down. It's also a great study in how bands use branding on stage and in their music. The ultimate thumbnail! GET GORGEOUS Like a book cover or logo design, it’s critical to see how the design holds up at the smallest size. 4 The Lady Fingers Letterpress is my new Instagram find. I love their work which uses historical printing techniques to promote diversity and raise awareness of sexuality and disability. The arts has always been a platform for inclusion and information. 5 There's a great hashtag #copywritersunite that connects the copywriting community. Angela Lyons, Bhavini Lakhani and me got chatting and thought that the designers we know might benefit from something similar. We've started a LinkedIn Group called Designers Alliance which is by invitation and created #designersalliance to use on social media. The idea is to create a safe space in which to help designers and creatives get support. It could be about locating a font, getting a helping hand, copyright query, words for contracts - generally being in business or working as a designer or creative. Let's connect on LinkedIn if you're interested in joining or find me elsewhere on social media. GET GORGEOUS Cheerleading others is a great way to build a solid network and reduce isolation. |
|
As we approach International Women's Day, it seems timely to share the work of Dr Betty Doyle. I first heard from Betty when she appeared at Storyhouse Live in Chester in September 2002 where we both on stage. She ran a poetry workshop for the audience and hosted an open mic event and received wonderful feedback. Betty is now researching contemporary women's poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University and her social media is packed with poetry events, diversity news and she shares the work of other poets too. Her collection of poems, Girl Parts, was published last year by The Verve Press. I can highly recommend this exploration of what it means to be a woman and the rarely covered topic of being a disabled woman in an able world. On 24th February it will be one year since Putin invaded Ukraine. In March 2022, I dedicated Gorgeous to arts and culture in Ukraine. It featured information on art campaigns and culture. You can read the issue for links to buy font or a poster to download. A digital purchase means that the creator still earns an income. |
|
Hello Lovely is now a member of Ecologi. I'm a believer in reducing our impact on the planet at source through good practice. Offsetting adds to carbon reduction. 85% of the subscription money to Ecologi goes directly to funding planet-saving projects and if you're interested in planting trees, you can use my link below and 30 more trees will be planted! |
|
Design can be inclusive, education and inspirational. Design can invite protest, encourage reflection, make us think, and learn complex information in an accessible way. It is a joy to empower you. Hello Lovely creates design for businesses of any size, authors, freelancers and partners with printers, copywriters and social media mangers on a wide range of creative adventures. My passion lies in design work that becomes part of the narrative. You can learn as much or as little as you like about what makes good design when you collaborate with me. I design across a range of disciplines, saving time and budget if you have multiple projects. I love creating adaptable, bespoke, typographical branding. Get gorgeous with print finishes for marketing material, pamphlets, magazines and book design from cover to cover including image research and illustration commissioning and creation. Learn from my print and project management experience. Break away from dull templates with my coding skills to create a website as unique as your work. I'm an authorised Squarespace trainer, developer and Circle member and trained in UI design with the Interaction Design Foundation. Hello Lovely believes in a fair wage and ethical working practice with attention to the planet and carbon footprint by reducing proof stages through good design, exploring eco-practices, product distribution and responsible travel.
If you would like to elevate your creative and get gorgeous with Hello Lovely, you can reply to me - let's have a conversation, I'd love to hear from you.
|
|
|
