24 September 2015

Link roundup for September 2015

FoxTrot starts off this month’s link roundup...


Hat tip to J.D. Wikert.

“What’s that font?” Trying to identify a font is one of those tasks that, until recently, was something that in many cases could only be done by someone with a near encyclopedic knowledge in type design. Indentifont is a good tool for the rest of us. It walks you through a series of questions, and makes suggestions all the way.

Using Identifont, I was able to nail down the typeface on this book cover as a slightly compressed ITC Fenice...


And my new institution’s new logo as PMN Caecilia with a customized rockin’ R. Bold, specifically.


Pro tip! Check the suggestions after every question. I found that sometimes, Identifont would make a correct suggestion that would go away after I answered more questions. I don’t know why, but there it is.

Be it resolved that:

It is unethical to present the same scientific poster at more than one meeting.

Drugmonkey started the debate; read the replies to the tweet for people’s responses.

There is an entire blog of free academic images. A promising resource, although it is a bit difficult to browse and search. For example, although this blog is all about images, it is entirely written in plain text.

Here are five reasons to go to conferences. Hat tip to Paige Jarreau.

How Scientific American makes its infographics. Quote from one of the illustrators:

The designer must realize that things are always more complicated than they seem. Particularly in any biological science. Moreover, any kind of catchy headlines like ‘we share 99 percent of DNA’, while not entirely wrong, are ultimately useless because they tell people nothing. Journalists must dig for surprising, engaging stories that reveal and manage complexity to the reader.

Hat tip to StoryBench and John Rennie.

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