4 Elements of Legibility
Reading text type (12 to 16 px) is easier if the font has the following characteristics:
- A generous x-height
- Open apertures
- Prominent ascenders and descenders
- Slightly loose letter spacing
- Discernible terminals
6 salient points on conveying a message with type
- aesthetic and emotional associations are social constructs
- no font can completely and clearly communicate the emotional associations of a text. Choose a font that seems to work
- serif font tend to feel traditional; sans serif fonts tend to feel more modern
- caps are powerful, reliable, and enduring. Lowercase letters are informal and friendly.
- serif italics feel humanist and more like cursive handwriting than san serif italics do.
- fonts play a supporting role to the author’s words. Fonts should never shout, “look at me! I am ripe with meaning!”
What type classification tends to feel more traditional?
Serif fonts
What type classification tends to feel more modern?
San serif
What type case feels powerful, reliable, and enduring?
Caps
What type case feels informal and friendly?
Lowercase
What font style feels humanist like cursive?
Serif italics
6 salient points on how to choose a font
To decide whether a font can do the job, read the text, and figure out what you need the font to do.
Salient tips:
-look for a bold that provides enough contrast but is still legible
- look for an italic that the shape/quality you want and retains legibility
- see whether the font remains legible at small sizes
- look at the capital letters. Ask yourself whether they’re pleasing and easy to read or too big.
- look at the numbers. Ask yourself whether they blend in with the text or are lining figures and look more like caps.
- look at the width of the font. The wider the font is, the longer the line length (column width) will be.
4 salient points on selecting a second display font
When you choose a second display font, you should:
-identify what you expect the font to communicate.
- balance concord and contrast (not too similar; not too different)
- consider structures (x-heights, bowls, shapes), strokes (monoline, thicks/thins), styles (scripts, retro, distressed,hand-drawn) and serifs.
- avoid settling for a font that doesn’t work.
4 salient points on selecting a second text font
When you choose a second font for text you should:
- identify how a second font will help respect, clarify, and share the information and ideas in the text
- create continuity by balancing concord and contrast
- avoid significant variations in bowls, extensions of ascenders and descenders, x-height, and apertures
- balance fonts optically rather than mathematically
3 ways people read
- Scanning with a purpose
- Casual Reading
- Sustained Reading
Scanning with a purpose is…
Is scanning down or across a text, jumping from section to section, looking for a specific piece of information. The reader may glance only at the first letter or word of each section, dismissing incorrect matches and moving on.
Casual reading is…
Skimming over a text, reading sentences here and there (the first sentence of each paragraph, the caption, the pull quote) to get a general idea and flavor of the text.
Sustained Reading is…
Engaged reading. It includes pleasure reading (pursued for its own sake) and reading for understanding. Readers slow down, read the entire text, and may go into a trancelike state.
We read the shapes of words and not individual letters. These shapes are created by what two elements?
The strokes and the spaces in and around the letters
What are the two types of meanings words have
Denotations - dictionary definitions
Connotations - emotional associations
How is rhythm created using text?
Through the repetition of horizontal lines. The rhythm is composed with consistent use of font, size, line length, and line height.
How do you compose dynamic rhythm?
Break the basic horizontal repetition with counter points.
How do you create counterpoints in a layout?
Create a focal point with contrast (size, color, space, weight, and shape).
Create strong vertical lines with alignment, gutters, continuation, and the shape of text blocks.
How do you create Spatial Tension in a layout?
- Avoid the center
- Create a sense of direction.
- Use unequal margins
- Contrast the sizes of white spaces
- Consider the edges
- Consider the z-axis
