Summary of Chapter 6 Working with Type

  Although images take a prominent position in visual design, the significance of typeface is also not ignorable. “The design of type sends an impression, conveying what you want to communicate before the text is even read”. (page 103)

  Typeface is different from often cited font that it’s a collection of characters, including letters, numbers, punctuation marks and symbols. A font is just one part of a typeface. Visual designers should consider critically before making a decision of typeface because diverse typefaces have different personalities which can perceptibly affect viewers’ mood and attitude in perceiving. That is, using a decorative typeface for formal or serious sentences is a little incompatible for reading.

  As the fundamental component of text content, letters prominently impact the overview of typeface. Height, properties of serifs, inside and outside of the letters, uniform or contrasting weight are some terms on comparing different styles of letters.

  To build a visual hierarchy for drawing viewers’ attention, it’s important to integrate display type and body type in correct ways. “Display typefaces are designed to look impressive at large point sizes and body type is designed to be easily read in a smaller point size.” (page 110)

  For better choosing of appropriate typefaces closed to text contents, designers should make sense about how to tell typefaces apart at first which is benefit for understanding type classification systems.

  There are four popular type categories in typographic classification system include serif, sans serif, script and decorative.

  Serif typefaces have small feet terminating the main strokes of characters which can be easily distinguished letterforms by viewers, they are usually used in text printing. In contrast, sans serif typefaces have little to no variation in characters’ strokes which make them easier to read on monitors. If designers want to simulate formal or casual handwriting for printing or displaying on monitor, script typefaces are good choice. And if designers want to express a feeling that reinforces the text content, they can turn to decorative typefaces.

  There are also some considerations before selecting a typeface for text such as the goal of content, audience’s need, readability, type family, platform and device compatibility, layout, shapes and images. Choosing a typeface for normal usage is easy, but choosing the appropriate typeface to fit the whole visual design to form a harmony whole is difficult even for those proficient designers.

  Usually, using one type family with many variant styles can make it easier to maintain readers’ process attention, avoid losing unity and consistency. Typefaces in a type family share common design traits but perform differently on variations, weights and widths, small caps and ligatures. And some type families may contain both serif and sans serif fonts which can be used together.

  Of course, designers can use more than one more type family to optimize content expressing or convey some deeper meaning. But they have to consider the internal similarities and external contrasts between different typeface families they prefer to use and find a balanced combination.

  Visual design is a purposeful work which intends to particular audience and finding a best way to satisfy them is the major work for designers. “Legibility measures how clear the characters and symbols of a typeface are and whether a reader can distinguish between the letterforms. Readability measures how easy it to read an extended amount of text.” (page 122&123) High level of legibility and readability are two major factors in determining a good design.

  So designers need to pay more attention on these two factors to make sure their audience can authentically read and understand their design. For legible typeface, they can use distinguished simple, clean letterforms or creating sufficient contrast between text and background to make text more conspicuous for reading.

  To reach a high readability, designers can arrange words on medium display, use appropriate text size, reserve enough uppercase and lowercase, find the optimum line length, emphasize or separate text by placing text on background or clean photos. In this case, designers can augment experience by analyzing successful flyers or posters on how to arrange text content in appropriate typeface to promote their further design.