Welcome to December, how has the last month been treating you? I hope you're reading this whilst munching a mince pie, it's never too early! Thank you for allowing me to take up space in your emails as always. This month you'll find: - an invitation to a font workshop hosted by me
- how to check colours for accessibility
- Ephemera
As always you'll find 150 Gorgeous Guides online with helpful creative and business advice. I welcome your connections, shares and follows on social media, let's keep in touch! Until next month, I wish you a peaceful holiday season and thank you for reading. |
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The F37 Foundry create and design fonts with people who don't usually design fonts or lack the platform or tech to do launch them. The typeface F37x has been in design for many years and began as a collaboration between the foundry and the late Milton Glaser (designer of the ‘I Love New York’ poster) which resulted in a revival of a typeface first used on a Carnegie Hall bill poster from 1969. They realised that the lighter weights were lost during the digital conversion (which goes to show that even the best minds can discard an essential file). This error resulted in another font called Glaser Stencil. It's rather lovely and elegant, and the website lists several font pairings. |
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Designing for accessibility is an important topic for designers and clients alike. It's very tempting to dive in and fix everything. Incremental steps are easier to manage and reduce overwhelm.
Being aware of the needs of audiences and users and providing solutions creates inclusion. It makes no sense to prevent clients from accessing products and services. I'm in the process of giving my website a complete review and that includes accessibility. I have areas to improve and here's a few tips to share from my experiences so far. - My advice is to start with one part of the accessibility requirements and take it step-by-step. Colour is a great place to begin. It plays an important part in a design. Colours inspire emotions, feelings, and ideas and strengthen a brand's message and perception.
- Colour contrast is an important part of making website accessible. Colour use also affects print accessibility.
- You may want to start with your branding and check how that works and how you use it, especially when it's layered on top of complex images.
- People who have low vision may find it difficult to read text on specific colours, for example text on a busy background or a colour combination with low contrast.
- When a low-vision user can't see colours or perceives them differently, the messaging can be lost or the content may not be understandable.
- Some elements that fail accessibility might be for several reasons. For example, my script font doesn't work well on background images so I rarely use it in this way. I will be exploring colour use, perhaps place a branding rule on how I use the logo or maybe it's a font change in which chase I'll review again when I get to reviewing the typography.
- Understanding colour as an element of accessible design will help you to create content that will benefit all users and make your messages clear.
- You can test out colours. WC3 publishes a comprehensive list of tools on their website that include colour contrast checkers. Simply load up the image you wish to check and the tool will explain why it fails. It's not always perfect.
- The best way to test is with your users.
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Jessica Hartshorne has been working with me on a map for book project and I've really loved the collaboration. She's helpful and did her research and I've found her to be a safe pair of hands. Do seek her out. Cut + Paste is an exhibition on genetic engineering – known as genome editing – including the tools used for it and the ethics surrounding it. I took some time to visit and was impressed by the accessible design. It's on at the Francis Crick Institute until 2nd December and it's designed by multidisciplinary design studio The Liminal Space. I am looking forward to visiting Fantasy: Realms of Imagination Exhibition at The British Library which is on until 25th February. A friend stayed for hours and I'm told there are stories behind the making of some of the most beautiful books including sketches for Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and props from two of my favourites The Dark Crystal and Twin Peaks. The British Library website has experienced a serious cyber attack and all links are directed to a temporary page. |
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Design can be inclusive, education and inspirational. Design can invite protest, encourage reflection, make us think, and learn complex information in an accessible way. 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. I'm taking bookings from February 2024 for book design, websites and branding but if you need a quick job completing, hit reply and let's see what we can do. If you enjoyed this month's issue, I'd love to know. You can tag me on social media and I'll be sure to reply. |
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