Know Your Type

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http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=153 (1 of 12)2/1/2006 1:35:24 PM

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Typography is an artform that stretches back thousands of yearsfrom stone-carved letterforms in

the second century, to Gutenbergs creation of movable, letterpress type in 1448. Typesetting was

born a tedious trade where hours were spent laying out a books pages one letter at a time. For the last

150 years designers have wielded type as visual weaponry, to point directly at the masses and fire at

will. Now were assaulted with type, most of which is awful; and thats where you come in.

Practicing good typography is at the core to good design. Computers are all grown up (they even come

with two buttons we hear) and everyone, including yer mama, is making christmas newsletters with

custom typecomic sans and all. Knowing your em-dashes, serifs and line heights is important, but

the key is developing typographic control. Here are some points to consider:

Some of the best designers are also writers, but at the very least we should all be readers. Writing is

turning into a crucial role for us; when its our job to articulate ideas we have to be clear about what

those ideas are and how to best present them. Read the text first, then make recommendations to the

author about clarity, pace and length to ensure the text is digestible. All too often designers find

themselves rewriting all of the text, stripping out the nonsense and getting at the core ideas. And this

becomes absolutely key on the web, where writing has a very utilitarian function and ideas need to be

as streamlined as possible. Use lists; break long pieces up with clear headings and subheadings;

summarize up front; use emphasis to break homogeny.

Typefaces change the tone of text, so know what your words are saying and how your typeface

emphasizes and articulates the message. Not every typeface is the right choice for every job, but mostdesigners have a handful of favorites that cover just about everything. Analyze older print designs and

see how some of the greats still stand up today; good typography has a lot to do with the timelessness

of a piece.



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Two theatre posters; two approaches. The design on the left still looks amazing after more than a

century. Extreme use of scale works well for posters that need to pull the viewer in for progressively

more layers of information. The poster on the right treats the type as though it were an illustration. It

is flowing and playful with a sense of whimsicalitymuch like the play it represents.

http://www.istockphoto.com/generic_image_view.php?ID=18901http://www.istockphoto.com/generic_image_view.php?ID=18900


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A versatile typeface works at a variety of sizes; many of the classics work great for both body and

display text. If youre having trouble making a photo work, craft some text and start working with

scale and stacking words. Stacking words or strings of text is one of the best ways out of a jam; you

bring emphasis to the text, make it visually interesting, and entice the reader to actually read!

This concert poster comes from the Hatch Show Print folks. Theyve been doing amazing work out of

Nashville, Tennesee since 1879! There work is still created by hand using real blocks of letters that are

carefully arranged and sent through a press. The subtle imperfections of this method give the poster

unique character.

Its generally a good idea to keep the typeface as is, that is, dont stretch it, increase or decrease the

tracking too much (thats the space between letters) or apply faux bold or italic (an easy mistake in the

Photoshop type palette). While some will argue for strict utility of headlines and body copy,

sometimes its interesting to break the rules in the interest of the content and readability. David

Carson often turned text on its ear and distributed paragraphs across the page like you might subjectsin a photograph. Theres power in this, and while it can turn ugly and unreadable quickly in the wrong

http://www.istockphoto.com/generic_image_view.php?ID=18902


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hands, dont underestimate the value of interesting type treatment.

The image of the left is an article from Raygun magazine from back in 1993. Many of todays grungylayouts can be traced back to what David Carson was doing in the early nineties. The David Byrne

poster on the right is an excellent example of allowing the typography to become one with the

illustration. This poster would have been ruined if a digital typeface had been rendered on top instead

of the imaginative doodle-based letterforms.

Many articles rely on illustrations rather than photographs as introductions to type piecesthink old

magazine articles or newspaper features. Starting with a strong typographical statement can draw theright amount of visual interest and be more meaningful and contextual than a photo; and with the

ri ht t eface it will be uite beautiful on its own.http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=153 (5 of 12)2/1/2006 1:35:24 PM


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Sometimes a free and funky font might be the right one for that special piece of display type,

especially as an initial cap. Consider using a single letter of a rather interesting face as a visual

element; often an entire paragraph of text might become hokey or too heavy-handed and stylistic, but

might be magical in moderation.



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Accidents are easy in real life, but making them look good on a computer isnt easy. Try adding some

grunge to a headline to give it the misprinted look, or tightly crop around the core of a word or phrase

to give it extra emphasis. Great and interesting things happen when you approach typography a little

backwards. Some texts, like poetry, lend themselves to expressive gestures, strange positioning and

emphasis, and odd spacing between letters, words and paragraphs.

Be different

Theres a lot of great work being done, especially in the poster scene where text is highly visual. Look

to printed matter for the best inspiration. Check your library for books on Russian constructivist

posters, 1930s American boxing posters, communist propaganda, books on handwritten text, motel

road-side signage, Spanish-civil war posters, and hand-painted signage from the last 100 years. There

are great books out there on the subject of type; you just have to find them.



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Type has lots of parts, and the anatomy of these bits makes a confusing lexicon for the uninitiated.

Heres a cheat sheet for the parts you should know. For a more complete listing, we recommend

the excellent TypeRules: the Designers Guide to Professional Typography.

The little wings on the edges of letterforms. They come in two flavorsbracketed and

unbracketed. Bracketed serifs have gentle curves that lead into the character, whereas the

unbracketed variety jam themselves in at 90-degree angles. Traditionally, serifs have been noted

for their elegance, and many believe they increase the readibility of body text by helping to move

the eye horizontally across letters. Of course others prefer clean lines and faces without (sans-)

serifs, as they believe serifs are too distracting and cause the eye to pause.

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Simply, the height of a lowercase x. While its not a very exciting name, it is the character that

generally defines the height of the other lower-case characters, excluding ascenders or descenders.

The parts of the character that extend above (ascenders) and below (descenders) the x-height.

Watch your ascenders and descenders when adjusting the leading (see below), to ensure breathing

room.

These are characters wearing fancy pants. They have extended flourishes at the beginning and end

of the character, and work well to add an air of elegance. They are not intended to be used

continuously in a sentenceso dont!

Specially crafted characters that combine letter-pairs. If you want someone to think you really

know what youre doing, use specially designed ligatures in place of more awkward letter pairs.



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Hyphens are the most bastardized character in design. The shortest of the grouphyphensare

for hyphenating compound words or words over line breaks. Its slightly bigger brother, the en-

dash, is used to describe a range, as in 18651904. The em-dash rings in as the heavyweight

champ of the three and is used as a graceful pause or interjection in a sentence. And do remember

the golden rule: two hyphens dont make an em-dash.

En-dash: Mac (opt+hyphen), Windows (alt+0150), HTML ()

Em-dash: Mac (opt+shift+yphen), Windows (alt+0151), HTML ()

Pronounced like sledding, leading historically refers to actual pieces of lead that were inserted

between lines of text to keep the characters in place. Theres a fine line between too little and too

much leading between lines of body text and either can reduce readability.

Tracking refers to the amount of space between all characters, while kerning is reserved for the

space between letter pairs. The point of kerning is to increase readability by creating an even

amount of space between characters. A character like an uppercase Y may need to be kerned closer

to its mate to compensate for the large space at the right of the letter. It sometimes helps to blur

your vision a bit and just make all the blobs equally spaced. Most fonts are auto-kerned, but youll

inevitably need to do some by hand for display type, especially when using all uppercase letters.


iS k h A i l K Y T


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Lastlyin our list at leasttry to keep lines of body text around 50 to 70 characters in length, as

this keeps your eye in a tighter space so you wont lose your place when completing a line of text.

Multi-column text is a designers best friend.

About Red Labor

Were a small design shop focused on creating thoughtful print, web and motion products. Recently

we designed the iStock t-shirts as well as launched an independent clothing and art product web site

called Iron-On Resistance, have a look, will ya?

Print references

q Type Rules!

q Thinking with Type

q Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion

Image creditsOpen House Poster; Maya Drozdz and Bill Hanscom

Red Theatre poster; designer: Studio Dumbar; letterer: Bob van Dijk; illustrator: Monica Peon

David Byrne poster; Joel Elrod

Cranbrook catalog; Catelijne van Middelkoop

Raygun; David Carson


iSt k h t A ti l K Y T
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Better Safe Than Shaggy; art director: Pete Morelewicz; designer: Alice Lewis; photographer: Darrow

Montgomery

Beastie Boys poster; Hatch Show Print

Midsummer; Gail Swanlund

Copyright 2006 iStock International Inc.

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