30 (Free) Minimalist Fonts

You The Designer reports: [edited]

One of the most essential elements in a minimalist design is typography. Let’s face it, you can’t do justice to minimalism with pre-installed fonts like Arial, Century Gothic, Georgia, Verdana, Times New Roman, etc.

Here are 30 sleek fonts you can download for free that could fit perfectly on your minimalist designs.

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Brett's 2p'orth: I would take issue with the term 'minimalist' for some of these, and I've blogged about a few of them already, but there are some interesting ones here, including Dalle and Satellite, alongside a few not-so-interesting specimens.
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Fujifilm X-S1

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

Fujifilm has announced the X-S1, a premium-grade superzoom compact. The X-S1 is part of the company's high-end 'X Series' and is built around the same 12MP 2/3" CMOS sensor as the X10 compact.

Despite the comparatively large sensor, it manages to include a 26X 24-624mm equivalent F2.8-5.6 zoom lens. It also features Raw shooting, a 1.44M dot electronic viewfinder and 460,000 dot rear LCD along with a rubberized coating and metal dials to emphasize its premium 'Made in Japan' status.
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Can the iPhone 4S replace a 'real' digital camera?

Infinite Loop have prepared a compare/contrast review of the image-taking performance of an Olympus XZ-1 point and shoot, a Canon 20D DSLR with EF-S 10-22mm lens, an iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy SII.

Edited summary:

"In real life use, each camera has a mix of benefits and drawbacks. The iPhone 4 was our previous favorite in smartphone cameras, and the iPhone 4S improves on that. The lens is a bit sharper and the hybrid IR filter seems to improve color rendering and possibly white balance. The new sensor also seems to have slightly less noise, better dynamic range, and three million more pixels to work with."

"The combination of an updated sensor and the dual-core A5 processor also make the iPhone 4S much faster to start up and take pictures. It was nearly as fast at launching, focusing, and snapping sequential images as the Olympus XZ-1, and certainly faster than previous compact cameras we have used."

"For snapshot purposes, the iPhone 4S is comparable to the 8MP Canon 20D when it comes to image quality. But that comparison is a little unfair — you can easily achieve better results with newer DSLRs in terms of exposure, noise, and megapixel count. What you can't do with any DSLR, though, is (again) slip it into your pants pocket. Lenses that have as bright an aperture as the iPhone 4S's f/2.4 will also either be limited to a single focal length or generally be much larger and heavier than the lightweight kit lenses that many users have."

"As we said at the outset, every camera choice comes with its own set of compromises and won't suit every individual photographer. Still, we have no qualms recommending the iPhone 4S as great alternative to compact, point-and-shoot cameras. It can take great photos when travelling or out with friends. Since it's also your phone, you'll always have it with you, so you may be able to grab shots in situations when you might not be able to otherwise take pictures at all."
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Free Fonts: Novecento

behance.net reports: [edited]

This is the revised and improved version of Novecento, an uppercase-only font family inspired on European typographic tendencies between the second half of 19th century and first half of the 20th.

It looks rational and geometric. However, it is optically corrected and balanced.
This font face is designed to be used mostly for headlines, visual identities or short sentences, both in big and small sizes.

Novecento is available both in opentype format (.otf) and as a webfont (@fontface), with 6 weights available free.
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Flexible website coding

For an excellent example of a website that is typographically elegant, adapts to the window size you set, and even the device you are using, click here.
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Fujifilm Finepix X10

This recent offering from Fujifilm is getting excellent reviews.

For £500 you get a pleasingly 'retro' looking body, an optical viewfinder, a bright (f2.0-2.8) 28-112mm manual zoom lens, fast focus and decent low-light performance.

For ePhotozine's review (including sample images) click here

For more sample images, courtesy of Digital Photography Review click here
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Shapecatcher

shapecatcher.com reports: [edited]

You know what some character looks like, but you've forgotten its name or its Unicode code point. Now what do you do? Shapecatcher is a new website, that helps you to find specific Unicode characters, just by sketching their shape. Currently about 10000 of the most important Unicode characters are compared to your sketch and are analysed for similarities.
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Shape Type

Shape Type tests how well you can restore a crippled character to its intended proportions. More difficult than you might think.
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Chevrolet Speedometers 1941-2011

Christian Annyas has published a lovely collection of Chevrolet speedometers. I heartily concur with his comments, including...

"The design of speedometers hasn’t changed much over the decades. Recently, however, there’s a trend towards digital meters. They’re probably supposed to look fresh and new, but due to the use of digital stopwatch-like typefaces they actually look extremely primitive and dated."
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Panasonic DMC-GX1

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

Panasonic has announced the Lumix DMC-GX1, an enthusiast-oriented Micro Four Thirds camera that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Lumix DMC-GF1.

The GX1 sports a 16MP 'Live MOS' sensor, a maximum ISO sensitivity setting of 12,800, a touchscreen interface and a revamped AF system. The GX1 is also the first camera compatible with Panasonic's brand new high-resolution LVF2 viewfinder, sold separately.

The GX1 is available in a black or silver body with the excellent super-compact 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 (28-84mm 35mm equivalent) H-PS14042E-K Power Zoom Lens for £765.

For a hands-on preview and video click here.
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