Typography Apps

We are all attached at the hip to our phones so as designers we should want to know what some of the best and most fun apps for our phones are. The app world is full of ways to improve your type skills and make type even more of your life then it already is. Most of these apps are just for IPhone/IPad because I have an IPhone and was able to test these ones out.

What the Font - free

This app lets you take pictures of fonts in every day life and shows you similar fonts and finds the font that you are looking for. It is not the most reliable but it works if the background is not to busy and the text is legible.

FontBook - 3.99

Fontbook is a resource for researching and comparing typefaces and fonts. It looks very extensive it has hundreds of examples. I didn’t download this app because I couldn’t afford to buy all these apps but this app had great reviews.

The Font Game - .99

The font game was created by Justin Stahl. It is a game where you have to guess what font is being shown there are 30 fonts and once you master those you move on to type terminology. I had a good time playing it trying to improve my score.

Helvetica vs Arial - free

This game is really simple you look at the word or sentence in front of you and say if it is either Helvetica or Arial. The more you get right the higher your score you get 3 lives. And was fun to play.

Kern - free

Kern is a game that teaches kerning. A random word with a missing letter appears at different point sizes. As the leading begins to shrink, you move the missing letter to its proper space. Your score is calculated based on the size of the type, the leading height, and the perfection of placement. It's a lot of fun and a great way to brush up on your skills. I thought this game was a little confusing but it was still interesting to play.

The Typography Manual - 3.99

This is a typeface and font resource that has a lot of helpful information including details on type anatomy, a glossary of type terminology, Mac and HTML key combos, an Em calculator, and a font-size ruler. I found it to be really helpful and worth the money.

Ampergram - free

This app was created by Philip Pastore. It lets you create endless typographic compositions using photos of fonts. You can also take your own photos and upload them yourself. And then you can save these text images to your phone and share them with your friends

OverGram - free

Over is the full version but it does cost money. This app Over is the perfect choice for any Instagram addict, enabling you to add typography to your images quickly and easily. I thought it was fun and had a lot of choices its not a learning app but still fun.