1 Professional Communications Working with Type Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Images and other multimedia content used.

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Professional

Communications

Working with Type

Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Images and other multimedia content used with permission.

This file is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of no more than the life of the author plus 100 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain


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Introduction

Johannes Gutenberg invention of movable type around 1450.

Computer technology and desktop publishing allows unprecedented access to printing.

This lesson focuses on the use of fonts for information. There are different concerns when type is used for design.

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Basic Definitions

Typeface: The set of characters including uppercase and lowercase alphabetical characters, numbers, punctuation, and special characters. A single typeface contains many fonts, at different sizes and styles.

Font: A set of characters in a specific typeface, at a specific point size, and in a specific style. "12-point Times Bold" is a font — the typeface Times, at 12-point size, in the bold style.


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Serif Fonts

French term Feet at the bottom of

character Makes type readable Used for body copy Examples: Times New

Roman, Garamond


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Serifs

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Sans Serif Fonts

“Sans” is French for “without”

Block type used for headers, subheaders

Good for web. Not enough pixels for serif fonts to be readable.

Examples: Helvetica, Arial


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TiSan Serif

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Special Fonts

Script Fonts: Difficult to read. Use sparingly.

Decorative Fonts: Good for design. Not good for information.

Dingbats: Symbols used for special characters.


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Decorative

Script

Dingbats

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Font Styles

Bold: Heavy emphasis Italic: Light emphasis Wide: Headers only Narrow


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Bold Italics

Wide Narrow

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Font Parts

Ascenders: b, d, f, h, k, l Descenders: g, j, p, q, y Cap height: distance from

baseline to top of the capital letters

x height: height of the lowercase letters


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Ascender Descender

Cap height x-height

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Font Measurement

Points: 72 points per inch Picas: 6 picas per inch; 12 points per pica Em: Size of a square uppercase character (M). Relative

to the font point size selected. En: One half as wide as an em. Measure: The length of a line, even if the line is not filled

with characters (such as a centered or partial line), designated in picas.


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Dashes

Soft hyphen: Used to indicate where a word may be broken at the end of a line.

Hard hyphen: A non breaking hyphen, used when the two parts of the hyphenated word should not be separated. (ex.: ill-fated)

En dash: Used to indicate a range. (ex.: Monday–Friday) Em dash: Used to illustrate a break — as illustrated

here.


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Vertical Position

Subscript: Slightly smaller than the rest of the font, set below the baseline.

Superscript: Slightly smaller than the rest of the font, set above the baseline.


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Subscript

Superscript

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ASCII Code American Standard Code for Information Integration Used to create special characters not listed on a

computer keyboard without having to use dingbats. Numeric code for any character available in typeface.

(ex.: © is 169) Can be used with most software by holding downing alt

and typing 0 plus number on numeric keypad. (Windows only)


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Spacing

Kerning: Space between two letters. Software usually automatically adjusts kerning now. Kerning must be reduced for some letter combinations (Ta, Ye, AV).

Tracking: Space uniformly between all characters in a line. (E x a m p l e)

Leading: Space between lines of type, traditionally measured baseline-to-baseline, in points.


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Columns Columns: Type is difficult to read if the line length is too

long. Setting type in columns helps make type easier to read. Width of the column and line length is relative to the point size.

Column gutter: The space between columns of type. Gutters: In double-sided documents, the combination of

the inside margins of facing pages; the gutter should be wide enough to accommodate binding.


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Alignment Mistakes Orphans: The first line of a paragraph separated from

the rest of the paragraph by a column or page break. Widows: Short last lines of paragraphs, usually

unacceptable when separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column break, always unacceptable when separated by a page break.

Rivers: Spaces between words that create irregular lines of white space in body type, particularly occurs when the lines of type have been set with excessive word spacing.


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Emphasis Mistakes

All caps: Using all capital letters for emphasis is generally a POOR CHOICE because it is aesthetically too jarring.

Underscores: A holdover from typewriter days and should usually not be used because weight cannot be adjusted and they crash into descenders.

Consider using bold or italics instead of all caps or underscores.


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Justification

Justification: Although in special situations, right justified, centered, and right-and-left justified are acceptable, they are usually difficult to read.

Text justified on both the left and right sides often causes rivers and unusual spacing problems.

Right justified type should be used in special cases and is the hardest to read.

For body text, use left justified / ragged right justification in most situations.


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Font Selection Use book weight for fonts. Avoid typefaces appearing too

heavy or too light. Stick with typefaces that do not stray too far from traditions (Times, Helvetica, Arial)

Use typefaces of medium width. Avoid typefaces that appear extremely wide or narrow in width.

Body type is most readable when font ranges from 8 to 12 points.

Avoid using too many fonts. Usually a header sans serif and a body serif are all you need.


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Paragraph Identification

Clearly indicate paragraphs. The indent is always the best method to indicate

paragraphs. When possible, set the indent with the software rather

than using the tab key. The indent is optional for the first paragraph. The extra line of space may be used for long blocks of

text, although the indent usually works better with columns.


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1 Professional Communications Working with Type Copyright © Texas Education Agency, 2012. All rights reserved. Images and other multimedia content used.

Documents

multimedia content

copyright term

special fonts script

decorative fonts

use of fonts

font point size

special characters

public domain slide