I was browsing through Barnes and Noble today and saw that How had a special issue on typography. I decided to pick it up, as it had a few interesting articles on typography and type design. There is a whole article on taking advantage of OpenType features; something I recommend for every designer. Insigne typefaces take advantage of many OpenType features such as old style figures and small caps that can really give your designs some extra polish. Alas, insigne wasn't mentioned, (Trust me, I scoured the magazine throughly) but there is always next year, right?
I have been trying out the Microsoft Expression web design program recently. My final verdict: I like it better than Dreamweaver. I’ve been using Dreamweaver for 5 years now, but where Expressions really shines is its handling of CSS, which is, in my mind, quite a bit better than Dreamweaver. My “problem” with CSS as opposed to tables is that with tables you can visualize what you are doing. CSS is a bit more programmatic. Expression helps a bit. If you are looking to save some money, and you use a PC, you should download Visual Web Developer. You can do some very advanced stuff with this program, and the interface is very much like Expressions. The price is right: free! However, Expression is more intuitive in how it handles CSS. It’s very interesting how Microsoft is starting to head into Adobe’s turf. Microsoft is working on equivalents to everything in Adobe’s product line. My long term bet is on Microsoft.
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