Organizing Your Fonts

Once you have your fonts on your Mac and loaded into your font-management application, you need to organize them so that you can find what you need when you need it. Since every designer has his or her own work style, you need to find the solution that works best for you. Use these tips as guidelines to help you build your own font workflow.

• Make a standardized location for font storage. This can be a directory dedicated to project fonts, or it may be a location in each client's job directory. Sure, your font manager will keep your fonts organized, but it's still a good idea to have a backup.

• Group fonts in your font manager in a way that makes sense to you. Some designers prefer to group by typeface or font style, and others prefer grouping by client or project. Of course, if your agency dictates how fonts need to be organized, be sure to follow the rules.

• Activate only the fonts you need for the current job. Activating every font in your library is the same as loading them into your operating system manually, which leads to trouble. There are too many fonts to work with easily, so productivity takes a big hit, and you may accidentally select the wrong font for the project you are working on. You also run the risk of loading conflicting fonts, which can cause stability problems in your applications.

• Deactivate fonts you aren't using. If you finish a project that uses one version of Helvetica and your next project uses a different version, you could unintentionally use the wrong font version. Using the wrong font version can lead to type-reflow, leading, and tracking problems.

Tip

Although Tiger is capable of loading hundreds of fonts, you shouldn't try to do so. The more fonts you load, the slower the operating system can get, and the more memory it will take for itself. Ultimately, your design applications will slow down and your productivity will be affected.