Slab Serif Madness

Not for me the genteel serifs of a Caslon or a Garamond. I prefer a typeface that makes a virtue of its serifs, and the slabs are squarely in that category. Slab serifs are sometimes heavy to the point of absurdity, or vanishingly thin. What they all have are prominent, unapologetic serifs. To me, the serifs look like purposeful feet marching across the page. Slabs are sometimes called Egyptian, a artefact of a brief European fascination with all things (Ancient) Egyptian.  The style owes nothing to Egyptian writing styles, and is rooted firmly in the European typographic tradition. Other characteristics of the slab are minimal stroke width variation, and a large x-height. Their strong personality makes them natural attention-getters.

Favourite Slabs:

  • Clarendon
  • Rockwell
  • Guardian Egyptian
  • Stag
  • FF Unit Slab
  • Sentinel
  • Archer
  • Geometric Slab Serif
  • Museo Sans

Mighty Text and Pushbullet are Here to Help

They might sound like geek superheroes, but these two services offer some interesting communication capabilities. Mighty Text allows users to send and receive texts from their PC (as long as their mobile phone is nearby). The comfort of using a normal sized keyboard to send a text is liberating. Texts suddenly become far more expansive than the usual telegraphic efforts forced on users by tiny screens. A plugin also allows users to send texts from within gmail — only for Chrome browser users.

Pushbullet pushes links, attachments, messages and notifications instantly between any computer and phone that you add and verify, essentially bridging otherwise balkanised platforms. Works with all of the major browsers (see the image below).