Childlike Typography

In the previous post, I shared how DuClaw Brewing Company is one of my favorite places for food, drinks and graphic design genius.  And now, I must sing their praises once again.

Their kids menu is an engaging and very child friendly example of design.  I was impressed by their use of a chalk mimicking font.  This type of font can be easily overused in design (not that a kid would care), but not in this case.  Combined with the food graphics and a clear, easy to read item description, this typography adds a nice touch.

The chalky font is called, "Eraser Dust", and can be downloaded free from several sites. Click here to download it from dafont.com.

This is yet another font going into my mental notebook for future projects.

Historical Typography Reused in a Contemporary Design

DuClaw Brewing Company is one of my favorite places to eat and drink.  And every time I visit, there's a new beer or a new coaster that has graphic design genius written all over it. The designs are screaming for someone to take a closer look--they're really eye catching. And of course I do. 

One thing I've always noticed is that whoever designs the promotional materials has a great eye for fonts.  The fonts always seem to match the theme, and when multiple fonts are used, they complement each other. 

Here is a screen snippet of their menu, which can also be found as a PDF on their website. 

Notice the words, "THE SWEET".  I categorize it as a historical font because  the first thing that comes to mind are signs from the wild west--say, a saloon or something.  The distressed, weathered appearance adds to the old wild west look, as do the unique serifs.

It's contemporary because, well, it's in a 2010 menu for one.  And, it's angled, giving it a modern "notice me" appearance. It also has some swashes added to the letters, giving it a slightly updated feel.

I wanted to know what this font was.  And because it was a PDF, I got lucky. 

A few years back I discovered a way to find out what the fonts are in some PDF documents. (A little sidetracking here) With a PDF file open in Adobe Reader, go to FILE>PROPERTIES>FONTS (tab). And wal-la, if you're lucky, it'll list the document fonts.

So the font here is called, "Nasty" and I was able to track it down (thanks Google).  It's a free font and can be downloaded from Fonts101.com.  Click here for a direct link to the download page.

I'm a fan of this font and how it has been used.  I'm making a mental note of it's existence in case I need it for a future project.