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Typographic Design
Form and Communcation
| Question | Answer | things to know | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The positioning of text within the text block or frame. Alignment can be flush left, flush right, justified, or centered. Flush left and flush right are sometimes referred to as left justified and right justified. | alignment | ||
| The imaginary line on which the majority of the characters in a typeface rest. | baseline | ||
| The paragraphs in a document that make up the bulk of its content. Body text should be set in an appropriate and easy to read face, typically at or point size. | body text | ||
| A typeface that has been enhanced by rendering it in darker, thicker strokes so that it will stand out on the page. | boldface | ||
| A dot or other special character placed at the left of items in a list to show that they are individual, but related, points. | bullet | ||
| The height from the baseline to the top of the uppercase letters in a font. This may or may not be the same as the height of ascenders. Cap height is used in some systems to measure the type size. | cap height | ||
| Text placed at an equal distance from the left and right margins. Titles are often centered. It is generally not good to mix centered text with flush left or flush right text. | centered | ||
| A collection of typefaces that were designed and intended to be used together | family | ||
| Text that is aligned on the left margin is said to be set flush left or flush left, ragged right. The term ragged right is sometimes used alone to mean the same thing. | flush left | ||
| Text that is aligned on the right margin is said to be set flush right or flush right, ragged left. The term ragged left is sometimes used alone to mean the same thing. | flush right | ||
| One weight, width, and style of a typeface: Optima* Bold and Helvetica Light Condensed are examples of fonts. Before digital type, a font usually referred to a specific point size of a particular style of a typeface. | font | ||
| In the context of modern computer operating systems, glyph is often defined as a shape in a font that is used to represent a character code on screen or paper. The most common example of a glyph is a letter in a specifi c font. | glyph | ||
| A document style in which the first line of a paragraph is aligned with the left margin, and the remaining lines are all indented an equal amount. This is an effective way to display lists of information. | hanging indent | ||
| The short lines of emphasized text that introduce detail information in the body text that follows. Also the category of typefaces that are designed to work best in headline text. | headline | ||
| A font that has been designed to look good at large point sizes for use in headlines. Headline fonts generally do not contain a complete set of characters since they do not require a full set of special symbols and punctuation. | headline font | ||
| The mathematical instructions added to digital fonts to make them sharp at all sizes and on display devices of different resolutions. | hints | ||
| A slanting or script-like version of a face. The upright faces are often referred to as roman. Some publishing applications allow you to apply a computer-generated, or fake, italicized style to a roman font. Using this technique is not recommend. | italic | ||
| A block of text that has been spaced so that the text aligns on both the left and right margins. Justified text has a more formal appearance, but may be harder to read if not properly set. | justified | ||
| The adjustment of horizontal space between individual characters in a line of text. Without kerning adjustments, many letter combinations can look awkward. | kerning | ||
| Traditionally, x-height is the height of the lowercase letter x. It is also the height of the body of lowercase letters in a font, excluding the ascenders and descenders. | x-height | ||
| Adjusting the average distance between words to improve legibility or to fit a block of text into a given amount of space. | word spacing | ||
| One of the possible variations of a typeface within a font family, such as condensed or extended. | width | ||
| The blank areas on a page where text and illustrations are not printed. White space should be considered an important graphic element in page design. | white space | ||
| The relative darkness of the characters in the various typefaces within a type family. Weight is indicated by relative terms such as thin, light, bold, extra-bold, and black. | weight | ||
| Depending on alignment, this term refers to text that is set flush left, flush right, or centered. | unjustified | ||
| Word spaces that align vertically from line to line in poorly justifi ed text creating a distracting river of white space in a block of copy. | rivers | ||
| Commonly refers to the upright version of a face within a font family, as compared to the italic version. | roman | ||
| A solid or dashed graphic line in documents used to separate the elements of a page. Rules and other graphic devices should be used sparingly, and only for clarifying the function of other elements on the page. | rule | ||
| A typeface that does not have serifs. | sans serif | ||
| Fonts that appear to have been hand lettered with a calligraphy pen or brush, or sometimes with a pencil or technical pen. | script font | ||
| A small decorative stroke at the end of a letter’s main strokes. Serifs improve readability by leading the eye along the line of type. | serif | ||
| One of the variations in appearance, such as italic and bold, that make up the faces in a type family. | style | ||
| A category of type in which the characters are special symbols rather than alphanumeric characters. | symbol font | ||
| Numerals that all have the same width. This makes it easier to set tabular matter. Most fonts have tabular figures. Also see proportional fi gures. | tabular figures | ||
| Text fonts are used for body copy and are most commonly serif fonts. In large families of typefaces these are often denoted with the suffixes regular or book (for example, Utopia Regular or ITC Veljovic Book). | text font | ||
| Adjusting the average distance between letters in a block of text. Generally, large type requires proportionally less space between letters to appear subjectively right visually while small type requires more letter spacing to appear right. | tracking | ||
| An outline font technology developed by Apple Computer. | TrueType | ||
| The letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. A typeface is often part of a type family of coordinated designs. The individual typefaces are named after the family | typeface | ||
| An international double-byte character encoding standard that encompasses virtually all of the world’s languages. Supported by many of the leading hardware and software manufacturers | Unicode | ||
| The technique of printing or displaying white or lightcolored text on a black or dark background for emphasis. This technique greatly reduces legibility, especially with small type. | reverse | ||
| A design treatment in which the first capital letter of a paragraph is set in a large point size and aligned with the baseline of the first line of text. Also see drop cap. | raised cap | ||
| Numerals that have different widths depending on their shape. When setting body text, it is preferrable to use proportional fi gures. Also see tabular figures. | proportional figures | ||
| The most common method of measuring type. The distance from the top of the highest ascender to the bottom of the lowest descender in points. In Europe, type is sometimes measured by the cap height in millimeters. | point size | ||
| A unit of measure in typography. There are approximately 72 points to the inch. A pica is 12 points. | point | ||
| A font that displays pictures or symbols instead of letters or characters. Picture fonts are useful for making logos, borders or interesting bullets. Like clip art, they can also be used as graphic raw material in some graphics software packages. | picture font | ||
| A unit of measure in typography. A pica is equal to 12 points. The traditional British and American pica is . inches. In PostScript printers, a pica is exactly 1/6 of an inch. | pica | ||
| paragraph rules Graphic lines associated with a paragraph that separate blocks of text. Rules are commonly used to separate columns and isolate graphics on a page. | paragraph rules | ||
| A specifi c typeface design that is tailored for the point size it is to be used at. | optical size | ||
| A cross-platform font fi le format developed by Adobe and Microsoft. | OpenType | ||
| oblique A slanting version of a face. Oblique is similar to italic, but without the script quality of a true italic. The upright faces are usually referred to as roman. Also see italic. | oblique | ||
| Two or more letters combined into a single letterform. In some typefaces, character combinations such as fi and fl overlap, resulting in an unsightly shape. The fi and fl ligatures were designed to improve the appearance of these characters. | ligature | ||
| Adjusting the average distance between letters in a block of text to fit more or less text into the given space or to improve legibility. Kerning allows adjustments between individual letters, letterspacing is applied to a block of text as a whole. | letterspacing | ||
| The amount of space added between lines of text to make the document legible. The term originally referred to the thin lead spacers that printers used to physically increase space between lines of metal type. | leading | ||
| A subjective feeling that graphic elements (such as fonts) are different but work together well. This gives a feeling of variety without losing harmony. Within a particular font, contrast also refers to the differences of stroke thicknesses. | contrast | ||
| The process of adjusting the size and spacing of type to make it fit within a defined area of the page. | copyfitting | ||
| An appearance-based or usage-based category of fonts. Decorative fonts are often ornate and attention-grabbing. | decorative font | ||
| The part of lowercase letters (such as y, p, and q) that descends below the baseline of the other lowercase letters in a font. In some typefaces, the uppercase J and Q also descend below the baseline. | descender | ||
| Symbol characters such as decorations, arrows, and bullets. | dingbats | ||
| Another category of fonts with characteristics similar to decorative fonts. In some typeface families, a font is categorized as a display font when it has been specifically designed for larger sizes | display fonts | ||
| An abbreviation for dots per inch. Refers to the resolution at which a device, such as a monitor or printer, can display text and graphics. | dpi | ||
| design treatment in which the first capital letter of a paragraph is set in a larger point size and aligned with the top of the first line. This method is used to indicate the start of a new section of text, such as a chapter. | drop cap | ||
| A punctuation character consisting of three dots, or periods, in a row. It indicates that a word or phrase has been omitted. | ellipsis | ||
| Common units of measure ment in typography. An em is tradition ally defined as the width of the uppercase M in the current face and point size. It is more properly defined as simply the current point size. | em, em space, em quad | ||
| dash the length of an em, used to indi cate a break in a sentence: His friend—also an editor—thought the same thing. | em dash | ||
| Common units of measure ment in typography. An en is traditionally defined as the width of the uppercase N in the current face and the current point size. It is more properly defined as half the width of an em. | en, en space, en quad | ||
| A dash the length of an en, used to indicate a range of values: 1960–1990. | en dash | ||
| Good document design is mainly a combination of common sense and keeping things simple | |||
| White space on the page makes your document cleaner-looking and easier to read. | |||
| Use indents and bullets to highlight important points. Use headings and subheadings to help your readers find the information they’re interested in. | |||
| Avoid using more than two type families on a page. Generally one serif and one sans serif make a nice mix. Using the sans serif for head lines and the serif for body text is a common and effective formula. | |||
| Use italics or bold to highlight words and phrases, rather than using all uppercase. All uppercase is hard to read. | |||
| Left justification can be easier to read and looks less formal than full justification. Pick the alignment option that matches the tone of your document. | |||
| Graphs, pictures, and charts add interest to your documents and clarify your text. Horizontal and vertical lines can be used sparingly to break up blocks of text. | |||
| Avoid using an excessive number of typefaces in a single publication. Some experts recommend using no more than two typefaces on a single page, while others set the number slightly higher | |||
| Avoid using two or more similar fonts on a page. Selecting fonts that are not different enough can cause conflict. | |||
| For example, it’s usually a poor idea to use two script typefaces on a single page, or a script face and an italic, or two different slab serifs, or two different old faces, etc. | |||
| Remember that fonts are part of the overall design of a publication and should be chosen to match (or contrast with) the design style of the publication. Readability is important, but so is design! | |||
| HEADLINES SET IN ALL CAPS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY HARDER TO READ THAN MIXED CASE | |||
| Headlines Set in All Caps are Signifi cantly Harder to Read than Mixed Case | |||
| Many display and decorative typefaces are eye-catching and visually pleasing, but can be hard to read. Should they be used in headlines? If you consider readability alone—probably not. | But many display and decorative typefaces are very effective at attracting attention— which may be your main goal when you are designing for competitive spaces such as magazine layouts. | ||
| The part of lowercase letters (such as k, b, and d) that ascends above the x-height of the other lowercase letters in a font. | ascender | ||
| read. Generally, a line should have 55 to 60 characters, or 9 to 10 words | Try multiple columns or, if you are stuck with a long line length, increase the leading slightly to make it easier for the eye to move from line to line. |
Created by:
Terran