Typography

8 cards. Each one is a 40-second story with a five-minute read behind it.

1. How a single misplaced keystroke can lead you to a digital trapTyposquatting turns simple human error into a lucrative or malicious opportunity. By registering domains that mimic legitimate websites through misspellings, extra periods, or dif…
2. Can your eyes actually see individual pixels on a modern screen?When Apple introduced the Retina display, they claimed the pixels would become invisible to the human eye. But is this a biological truth or a clever marketing tactic? As screen d…
3. From Lost Souls to a 20-Year Journey to Number OneThe Swedish heavy metal band Avatar didn't start with a hit. They began as 'Lost Soul' in 2001, nearly disbanding before finding their identity. Today, they hold a record for one …
4. When identical-looking letters are actually different charactersA single character substitution can lead you to a fraudulent website. In the digital realm, the Latin 'a' and the Cyrillic 'а' look identical to the human eye, but computers treat…
5. The digit 3: a mathematical anomaly and a typographic chameleonFrom its origins as vertical lines in ancient Indian notation to its role as a security feature in modern barcodes, the number 3 is far more than just a simple digit. It is a math…
6. Comic Sans was drawn for cartoon characters, and it may help some readers.In 1994 a Microsoft designer saw cartoon characters in beginners' software speaking in Times New Roman and thought it looked absurdly formal. He drew a typeface based on comic boo…
7. Futura, built from circles and triangles, was sold as 'the typeface of our time'.In 1927 the German designer Paul Renner released a typeface made from near-perfect circles, triangles and squares. It was marketed as the face of the future, copied by rival found…
8. The world's most famous typeface was designed to look like nothing.Helvetica began in 1957 as 'Neue Haas Grotesk', drawn by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at a Swiss type foundry. It was renamed Helvetica, Latin for 'Swiss', to sell abroad. It…

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