Typography Project

TYPOGRAPHY is the balance and interplay of letterforms on the page, a verbal and visual equation that helps the reader understand the form and absorb the substance of the page content. Typography plays a dual role as both verbal and visual communication. As readers scan a page they are subconsciously aware of both functions: first they survey the overall graphic patterns of the page, then they parse the language, or read. Good typography establishes a visual hierarchy for the page by providing visual punctuation and graphic accents that help readers understand relations between prose and pictures, headlines and subordinate blocks of text.

Legibility
Good typography depends on the visual contrast between one font and another and between text blocks, headlines, and the surrounding white space. Nothing attracts the eye and brain of the reader like strong contrast and distinctive patterns, and you can achieve those attributes only by carefully designing them into your pages. If you cram every page with dense text, readers see a wall of gray and will instinctively reject the lack of visual contrast. Just making things uniformly bigger doesn’t help. Even boldface fonts quickly become monotonous, because if everything is bold then nothing stands out “boldly.”

When your content is primarily text, typography is the tool you use to “paint” patterns of organization on the page. The first thing the reader sees is not the title or other details on the page but the overall pattern and contrast of the page. The regular, repeating patterns established through carefully organized pages of text and graphics help the reader to establish the location and organization of your information and increase legibility. Patchy, heterogeneous typography and text headers make it hard for the user to see repeating patterns and almost impossible to predict where information is likely to be located in unfamiliar documents.

Things to Consider:
• Legibility - Different fonts work only for headlines but not body copy. What characteristics about a font can cause that?
• Line length – the eye has a hard time tracking down to the next line if they too long, but being too short can be just as detrimental, what is the optimal line length of body copy?
• White space – why do advertisers and designers consistently ignore the benefits of white space? What are some of those benefits?
• Typefaces – How do some fonts compliment each other or lend themselves to a certain style – contemporary, grunge, certain time periods, etc.
• Type size – how small is too small and when does a headline become too large?
• Case – when is it appropriate to put things in all caps or all lower case? What benefits are to be had for choosing one or the other?
• Emphasis – How do you create emphasis in different or unique ways? There are options besides size and boldness.

Your job:
At your next creative meeting bring something in (preferably not an advertisement) that you see and/or read every day that you believe has strong typography and a lesson to teach. (Or if you’d like something with poorly done typography that makes you cringe) It can be your box of dishwasher detergent or your television remote. Be prepared to say more than “like” or “dislike”. Know why it works for the reader or why it doesn’t. Consider things like backgrounds behind the type as well. Look for something unique or unusual but is still effective.

This project created and written by Tonya and Renee