Bert- Episode 2.1

Do it yourself design, part 2, Typography and fonts.

One of the most misunderstood and misused elements of design is typography. Along with poor layout, poor use of imagery, poor use of type many times contributes to an overall complete lack of design. I see the abuse everywhere I go. Personal Computers allowing the advent of self-publishing are primarily to blame. There is nothing wrong with designing and publishing your own projects, however a little design knowledge can go a long way, hence this series of installments on do-it-yourself design for those of you bootstrapping your business on a shoestring. In today's media-rich economy the messages that get through and “stick” have been well developed and designed. If you want to compete in the marketplace you need your message to stand out.

In our first installment of do it yourself design I shared a publication I received from AIGA about process. A 12-step program for developing any project. If you haven't listed to it, please do. So let's get on with our second installment, typography.

Typography has a long and rich history. Fonts on the other hand do not. Let me explain the distinction. Typefaces are designed by type designers with names like: Futura, Bodoni, and Caslon and type is what is seen by the eyes when you read. Fonts are the representation of those typefaces that allow them to be printed like the metal type used on a letterpress or the digital file on your computer.. So that list inside your word processing program is a list of fonts that represent various typefaces.

Typefaces are categorized by their appearance. These categories are BlackLetter type(think masthead of the New York Times), Serif type (they have little “feet” at the end of their strokes. Think Times on your computer. They are the most commonly used in books, newspapers and magazines), Sans Serif type (think Arial on your computer), Script type like Mistral, Display type likeBauhaus, Monotype type like Courier. Check the TCEP blog as I'll have examples and links.

Now that I have the definitions out of the way the real issue I want to talk about here is typography and its proper use in the design of communications. My overall guiding principal when using typefaces is, in the words of Mies Van deRohe, “Less is more.” Many times people will get carried away and start using many different typefaces in a single project. Their logic is “I need to create contrast. I want that headline to stand out from everything, and I want this title to standout from that, so on and so on. This is bad bad, bad. Instead of creating contrast and drawing distinctions from one piece of copy to another, confusion is being created. There are too many typefaces in the document and this makes reading and comprehension more difficult. In fact, chances are, people who started reading the document stopped reading because they found it confusing and difficult.

My recommendation is for most projects to use two typefaces preferably a serif and sans-serif. Some projects may require something special like a display typeface but you should be able to select a nice sans-serif typeface for your headlines and a serif typeface for long passages of copy that are to be read.

Please note that some fonts should be used for print and others for on-screen reading. Have you ever found that a certain typeface looks better on screen than another? This is because there are typefaces that have been designed specifically for use on screen, not for printing. Some of these include, Arial, Trebuchet, Verdana and Georgia. These typefaces have been designed to look good when represented by pixels on screen. I would not recommend using them for projects that are inteded for print.

Again check the blog for links and examples online at cubicleescape.com

Bert Mahoney

2006-04-28T16:13:24

Bert Mahoney