Lecture #3

Typography 6/11/97

The following outline is a guide only. Any material from the lecture and readings (even if not covered in class) may be included on assignments and exams.

Examples:

• Types
• Serif
• Sans-serif
• Novelty
• Font

I. Weights

1. regular
2. bold

II. Styles

1. Roman
2. Italic

III. Font

• a complete set of of characters comprising one specific size, style, and weight of typeface, including numbers and punctuation marks (upper and lower case)

IV. Point size

• refers to the height of a font's block (metal) from original typing, not the point height of the letter itself.
• A font's point size was measured not by the type characters but the printing block that held those characters.

V. X-height

• x-height is the typical height of a lower-case letter. Fonts with tall x-heights look bigger than short x-heights, even when point size is the same.

VI. Expanded vs. condensed

VII. Legibility

• Depends first on its inherent qualities and second on how it is used.
• Legibility is determined on several factors: what is to be read, why it is to be read, who will read it, and when and where it will be read.
• Must know its purpose. Ads and body type do not have the same purpose

VIII. Serif (Roman) and Sans-Serifs

• Most common two types
• Serifs have three functions: they help keep letters a certain distance apart, at the same time they link letters together to form words, they help to differentiate different letters · III ill, III, or 111?
• Serif is a small stroke added to the ends of roman letters for both decorative and functional reasons.

IX. Three rules of legibility

1. Sans-serif type is intrinsically less legible than serifed type because the letters are more like each other.
2. Well-designed roman upper and lower-case type is easier to read than any of its variants, including italic, bold, caps, expanded and condensed.
3. Words should be set close to each other and there should be more space between the lines than between the words.

X. Type classifications

• Humanist -- earliest roman types
• Garald -- Garamond & Aldus -- roman types deriving from those cut by francesco griffo for a venetian printer-publisher
• Transitional -- between old face, and modern. Baskerville, Times, Bell · Didone -- formed from didot and bodoni -- vertical shading, hairlinr serifs, introduced mid 1700s when printing presses became able to handle fine lines. Bodoni
• Mechanistic -- types that originated during the Industrial revolution. Rockwell
• Lineal -- sans-serif (also gothic) -- Univers, Eurostyle, Gill Sans
• Incised -- (glyphic) based on letters cut in stone -- Perpetua, Perpetua Titling, albertus
• Script -- types that copy handwriting Mistral, Cursive-Elegant, many others
• Manual -- (graphic) typefaces based on hand drawn originals but not representing writing
• Black letter -- essentially a type drawn with a wide nib Cloister, Old English, English Towne
• Non-Latin Types -- cyrillic, arabic, oriental, etc.

XI. Margins

• the white space on a page round the outside of the printed matter
• serve various purposes
• Form a frame around the subject matter to separate them from the background against which the material is held
• Provide an aesthetic contrast of quiet to the busyness of text
• Somewhere to put the fingers without obscuring the text

"And the very first essential is to realise that design is part of journalism. Design is not decoration. It is communication." Harold Evans, Newspaper Design, (London 1973), p. 1

"The enticement content of a headline depends, I think, eighty per cent on the wording and twenty per cent on the type." --Clive Irving

XII. Tracking, Kerning, Leading

XIII. History of typesetting

• used to be set by hand
• linotype keyboards
• phototypesetters
• computer typesetting

XIV. Styles

• font -- a complete set of characters comprising a specific size, style and weight of typeface, including numbers and punctuation marks.
• families
• weights (lightface, regular, boldface)
• styles (roman, italic, condensed, oblique, outline)

XV. Type Families

• Serif type -- has tiny strokes, or serifs, at the tip of each letter.  Generally considered the most readable.  Times is the most common serif in use today.
• Sans Serif -- sans means "w/o" not as readable, although sometimes on a computer it is preferable
• cursive -- handwritten
• blackletter -- old English
• Novelty type -- adds variety and character

XVI.  Size

• measured in points (height)
• point sizes do not always correspond to reality
• actual height may vary from letter to letter
• x-height (height of a typical lower-case letter) Tall x-heights look larger than small ones, even when the point size is the same
• To measure, from the top of an ascender to the bottom of a descender
• Ascender -- part that extends above the body of the type (S)
• baseline -- the invisible line the characters sit on
• descender -- part that extends below the body of the type (g)

XVII.  Adjusting type

• point size
• leading (vertical space between lines of type)
• kerning (or tracking) (horizontal space between letters)
• set width (expanded, condensed)