If someone said to me that I can use my phone to help me with my typography… I’d have assumed they were referring to the ability to call up a friend who was a typographer or who has a great deal of experience in crafting type.

What they’d really mean is that I could download the Typography App for the IPhone, which has has several useful features and resources for designers, including a visual type anatomy glossary, a font size ruler, an em calculator, and enough content to fill a 60-page book.

In fact it has all the essentials of a desk reference in a regularly updated pocket resource… or so it’s lovely designed website tells us… including:

A Typography Manual. A 60 page book with sections including the history of typesetting, the basics of type, popular typeface specimens, and the latest information on typography for the web.

Visual Type Anatomy Glossary. A 100-term glossary of typography and type anatomy terms that doesn᾿t just give you a definition—it shows you.

Style Guide. An in-depth style guide of grammatical and typographic rules for properly setting numbers, special characters, punctuation, capitalization, titles, and references.

Em Calculator. Calculate your font size, leading, and an extra element᾿s measurement in ems so your latest web project scales correctly in different browser sizes.

Font Size Ruler. Reading a magazine and curious what the headline typesize is? Use the dynamic font size ruler to get an estimate of the printed point size for serif and sans-serif typefaces.

Mac Character Keyboards. Use an interactive tool to find special characters on Macintosh keyboards using caps lock, shift, option, and shift-option.

Standard Ruler. At 2.5 inches long, use the Standard Ruler to measure in inches, millimeters, points, and picas.

Conversion Table. A full conversion table for converting inches, millimeters, points, and picas.

HTML Character Codes. A full listing of standard HTML character codes for letters, numbers, punctuation, math, currency, accents, and special characters.

Paper and Web Banner Sizes. On the way to the printer and need to know a paper size? Use this complete table of size names and measurements for paper, business cards, and web banners.

Inspiration Resources and Blogs. If you᾿re looking for a new site to see beautiful design and type, check this listing of websites to spark that creative spirit or read the thoughts of designers active in the community.

Web Resources. Learn something new, utilize a new technique, or find tools to help you work more effectively with typography with the numerous online resources listed.

Type Foundries. Take a look at dozens of type foundries to look at new typefaces or grab some of the classics.

Wow! That’s a lot of incredibly useful stuff in one app!

Tags: Crafting Type, Design, Design Tool, Graphic Design, iPhone, Typography, Typography App

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 5th, 2009 at 12:29 pm and is filed under We Like. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.