“Good design is good design” is a phrase I often find myself saying, whether it’s to someone I’m instructing, a prospective client, or in agreement with a coworker. (My other go-to phrase is “Don’t design in a vacuum,” but that’s a post for another day.)

Branding and corporate identity. When you can you spot the difference at a glance between an ad from Tiffany’s, featuring the Tiffany-blue box and white satin ribbon; and an ad from Target, whose tagline “Expect more, pay less” underscores the benefit for consumers and the financial return for investors: well, that’s branding.

The em dash vs the hyphen and what to do when WordPress automatically changes it, whether you like it or not.

Every now and then designers and/or developers run into the problem of designing a website or application that includes non-web fonts because not all fonts are installed on all end-user computers or other devices. Therefore, one often settles for one of the 11 less-appealing core web-fonts, which include Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman,Trebuchet MS, Verdana, and Webdings. These are the standard fonts used by all devices. It’s been the only way to ensure that all website visitors will see exactly what the designer intended. The only alternative is to render your type as graphics, which is impractical. What follows are some solutions for using the exact font your design requires, or at least a font reasonably close.