Typography 101

Typography 101

By: Josh Rucinski

One of the biggest complaints I hear from my graphic designer (my wife!) is the lack of typography know-how in architectural pin-ups. Here are some of the easiest to avoid mistakes.

Use one typeface or font, two maximum. Typefaces should be used carefully on a large layout. Avoid using many different sizes, it is confusing to the reader. Just as studies show red is a color that produces certain emotions, there are studies that prove some type is hard to read. Using different sizes is hard to read. USING ALL CAPS IS ALSO HARD TO READ. Using upper and lowercase caps as the written language should be written is easier to read.

If you are using one typeface, serif fonts are actually better designed than most san-serif fonts. The typeface Times New Roman has many years of careful typesetting behind it. Monaco is not. Notice how the font is continually looking as though it is being stretched or pushed together. Reading the font is not as pleasing.

Another pratfall that is common is “bastardizing” the text.  This is when text is forced to be bolded when there is no actual bolding loaded into the computer. A way to check is to see if you have a full family font loaded. This might look like this:

Myriad Pro

Myriad Pro Light

Myriad Pro Bold

Myriad Pro Italic

Myriad Pro Black

instead of simply:

Myriad Pro

This is important, because this means a designer has tweaked the font's stroke, bowls, descenders and ascenders to read as clearly as possible from the spacing between the letters (kerning) and the relationship between an italic, bold and roman on the same line. It is not important to learn what all these terms mean, the basic upshot is this: If you use a full family versus the bastardization of one font, it will read better. One of the reasons Adobe products are expensive is that they come with a license of certain fonts for your computer. A computer with Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator will have better font choices then a computer without those programs. 

Another form of bastardization is stretching the text using a percentage creating a WordArt effect. This should be avoided at all cost as the result is almost always read as amateurish at best, and a complete lack of care for a project at worst.

There is also a rule of thumb for how big fonts should be printed. 72 point font is never a good idea. 72 points equal an inch. At that point the fonts will begin to disincorporate and special attention must be paid to kerning. Leading, or the space between the lines must also be examined. Even a 48x36 poster should use a 24pt or smaller text. The idea is to draw people into your work. Shouting with a large font will turn people away.

I hope that this will help students with their work. Typeface is very crucial to a good design layout. An excellent book that is accessible to readers is “A type primer” by John Kane. It explains the development of typography and why these small things add up to big impressions.