San Francisco, CA, USA
This book published by Blurb, Inc. in 2015 Blurb, Inc. 580 California Street #300 San Francisco, CA 94104, USA www.blurb.com Copyright Š 2015 Cover & internal design by Joanna Lim Information collected by Joanna Lim All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder. Printed in San Francisco
Dedication To my parents whose care and support helped me gain skills in life. To my beloved partner Josh, whose love sustains me. To my friends who still chose to be friends with me after all my complaining.
Know your type What is typography Typography as an Art form Typography as Semiotic Resource Graphic signs between language & image Communicative effects of typography Reference list
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type. It’s central to the work and skills of a designer and is about much more than making the words legible. Typography is one of the primary ways of communication. It could relay on the different messages aside the words itself. The mere choice of typefaces and its arrangement can greatly affect an entire design. The first step to use typography effectively is to know the basics The usage has evolved and is
one of the important things in design, business and marketing. Good typography is partly down to creative intuition, but it’s impossible to become skilled in typography without understanding the basic rules of the craft – even if you mean to break them (Naldz Graphics, 2015).
Every designer needs to understand typography. We explain the fundamental concepts and terminology in words that you can understand. — Nguyen, 2015 4
F
rom a descriptive and simplistic point-of-view typography is the art and technique of arranging type. Most people never think about typography. They do not understand the psychological effect it has in relation to conveying a message. Typography is 95% of design, it’s a driving force in all forms of communication art. Good typography is utilitarian in that it should allow the reader to focus on the content and not the formatting. Good typography often goes unnoticed. Consistency – in any typographical work the consistent use of typefaces, kerning, leading, bullets and formatting is critical. Consistency makes the work look professional and keeps your readers focused on the content and not the formatting.
Hierarchy intentionally guides the reader through the content. Often with best selling authors, their name will appear larger or the same size as the title of the book. This is because the designer is aware the author has an existing fan base that will be interested in the book regardless of the title and will most likely pick it up for that very reason. Alignment – Alignment helps keep the look of a piece unified. A flush left or flush right alignment gives the piece a stronger edge line for the viewer’s eye to follow. It also tends to give a more sophisticated look than a centered alignment, which is often the choice of typography novices (Hill 2013).
Hierarchy – it is important that your text gets read in the order that it’s meant to be read in.
6
— Robert Bringhurst
While our alphabet was created as a way to communicate through written symbols, it now serves another purpose; to create art. There’s a lot more to type than the average person knows. There’s a science behind kerning, leading, serifs, point size, line length, tracking and more. Typography is everywhere and we’ve realized there is so much we can do with it. Letter art has become a fad and today I would like to share with you some examples of typography which are not only visually appealing, but inspirational. — Typography as an art form, 2015
A font is a complete character set of a particular style of typeface. A typeface or font is the vehicle through which written language is materialized for sighted readers. When meaning is punctuated during a social semiotic episode or experience, it is materialized in some particular form sound waves for oral communication or visual images for painters and photographer. When language is punctuated in written form its materiality is a typeface or font used to render language visible.
understanding its meaning potentials. Traditional fonts used in many written texts were naturalized to the point that readers were not expected to pay attention to their design, rather they were expected to look past the typeface used to retrieve the content represented. Classic fonts like Times New Roman, Bodoni, and Didot were not viewed as design elements of the text; rather they were viewed as delivery mechanisms for a written narrative. In print-based texts, the visual dimensions of the written
“Typographical elements have become an integral part of the narrative itself, a semiotic resource that adds to the potential meanings.� The typographical and design elements associated with written language have taken on new forms and new roles in contemporary picturebooks. Acting as a naturalized conduit for the communication of a verbal narrative, typography elements have become an integral part of the narrative itself, a semiotic resource that adds to the potential meanings of a picturebook. Recently typography was traditionally concerned with legibility and was not initially considered a semiotic resource sufficiently defined to warrant the development of analytic methods for
language are automatized to the point that meanings made through font and layout can become taken for granted, shifting the attention to the meaning making process focusing on the semantics of the written discourse (Serafini & Clausen 2012).
10
The German word Schriftbild (writing + picture) neatly epitomizes readers’ ability to abstract from the linguistic function of writing and focus on its pictorial qualities. When they do this, they partly and temporarily ignore the symbolic nature of typography and perceive a written document as a designed surface, a layout of graphic elements in the space of a page. Texts differ as to the pictorial qualities of their typography and graphic design. Although no text genre completely dispenses with the connotative properties of typography, some are clearly more closely allied to the use of pictorial effects than others (e.g. legal documents). In typographic practice this division between normative, merely symbolic typography and more norm- breaking, innovative, indexical and iconic typography is usually expressed in the terms Gebrauchstypographie or Lesetypographie (typography for reading versus Akzidenztypographie or Displaytypographie (typography for special occasions).
While text types which adhere to the former aim to keep to established typographic standards so as to be easily recognizable and highly functional, text types abiding by the latter practise a playful approach to typographic patterns, which seeks to use the pictorial potential of typography to the full. It is worth bearing in mind here that, although somewhat ‘wild’ in nature as they temporarily suspend the symbolic readings of type, iconic and indexical typography are closely allied to the linguistic functions of typography. Meanings constructed from typopictoriality may support, reinforce, reinterpret or contradict verbally construed messages; at any rate, these formal and semantic interrelations are intended and aim to create a holistic entity (Stöckl 2005).
12
J
ust as writers pick and choose from a stock of available words and phrases for stylistic effect, typographers and graphic designers have choices to make concerning graphic shapes and their positioning on the page and are guided by considerations of optimum suitability and expressivity. Mostly the aim is some kind of paralleled harmony between verbal and graphic structures and meanings, although calculated contrasts and other more subtle semantic relations are also possible. Applying basic communication or text theory, we can easily discern central modes of typographic operations. Production and interpretation of typographic design hinge upon cultural, fashion or trend related and domainspecific connotations of graphic means. Clearly, typography can have numerous functions and it would be a rewarding venture to study the systematic relations between the use of (typographic
means & their communicative functions with respect to text and linguistic structures. However detailed and intricate the workings and effects of typography may be, they fall into the following four broad modes of operation, which highlight the visual communication cognitive underpinnings and semiotic dynamics of graphic meaning making: (1) typography structures visual space and thus creates optical balance, shapes textual order and guides readers’ attention by providing a page-map to navigate; (2) (typo graphic design has a strong pictorial potential as it can form visual signs acting like icons signifying objects, statesof-affairs or actions related in one way or another to the message of the verbal text. A reference to the graphic material and technological making of a text as we have been can be equally pictorial; (3) most important to linguists, typographic means refer to the pragmatics of linguistic structures in that
that they superimpose on, accompany, reinforce and accentuate syntactic, semantic, prosodic and speech act structures of the verbal text; (4) typography reproduces and reshapes cultural and media conventions, designers and readers have negotiated in typographic practice over time. Any new graphic design will be created and interpreted against the background of what users of typography know about the code and its meanings, at the same time extending and enhancing typographic resources (Jakobson 1971).
14
IMAGE: JOANNA LIM
Typography rules and terms that every designer must know 2014, viewed 5 May 2015, <http://www.creativebloq.com/typography/whatis-typography-123652>. Nguyen, K 2015, Typography rules and terms that every designer must know, viewed 10 May 2015, <http://karennguyendesign.tumblr.com>. Friends of Type 2015, About, viewed 10 May 2015, <http://friendsoftype. com/about/>. Hill, D 2013, What is typography?, viewed 10 May 2015, <https://www. bopdesign.com/bop-blog/2013/07/what-is-typography/>. Jakobson, R 1971, Fundamentals of Language, The Hague, Mouton. Serafini, F & Clausen, J 2012, ‘Typography as semiotic resource’, Journal of Visual Literacy, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 1, viewed 17 May 2015, via Gale database. Stöckl, H 2005, ‘Typography: body and dress of a text - a signing mode between language and image’, Visual Communication, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 204-214, viewed 17 May 2015, via Sage Journals database. Typography as an art form 2015, viewed 11 May 2015, <https://www. nuvonium.com/blog/view/typography-as-an-art-form>. Vance, V.J 1996, ‘Typography 101’, Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 132-134, viewed 17 May 2015, via Sage Journals database.
18