TEN COMMANDMENTS OF
GOOD TYPOGRAPHY
CONTE
NT 1 2 3 4 5
Kerning Hyphenation Language Font Space
6 7 8 9 10
Distorting Alignment Anatomy Grid Weight
1
Kerning is the art of adjusting the space between individual letters so that they all look like they have an equal amount of space in between them. Without kerning many letter combinations look awkward.
Here the kerning is set to 0. The best typefaces will already be kerned more or less, and will only require minimum tweaking.
The kerning space between the R and N is -110... way too tight. Learn to strike the balance when kerning.
KE RN
HYPHENATION
2
Hyphenation is when you seperate a word by forcing half of it onto the line below. This is used to make text look more uniformed... but as you can see, it makes the text look ugly and less readable, so avoid it.
LN@GU Obviously having clear spelling is vital. If you misspell a word in your heading your clinet will think you are a fool, and will lose trust in your abilities.
Never us text talk within body text. If you’re not writing an e-mail then stay away from those dreaded @ signs.
AgE Make sure that you dont confuse people by randomly alternating upper and lower case letters.
3
Clear language is vital for a clear message. If you have an article that is written in slang or text talk, it won’t be easily understood. Although many designers are not english experts it’s a good idea to at least have a basic understanding of language.
FONT Don’t combine more than two different fonts in one piece of design. Rather use the typefaces that come with the font to seperate information.
Use fonts where they are relevant. This font say’s ‘kids party’. It doesn’t say corporate office’.
4
Clarity is a key aspect of good design, so in order to be clear with what message you are giving out you need to have a good font.
SPACE 5
Space is a beautiful thing when used properly. Using it gives a sense of calm clarity to the page, as well as pace. Filling it saves space, but if you’r page is packed people will be put off reading the content.
Type makers are expert in their field and know how to judge proportions properly. If you want to condense your type, then get hold of the offical condesnsed verison. Do not do it manually.
DISTORTI
NG
6
Having one sized text through any project will, of course, be boring. So whenever you want to scale up some text make sure that you do not distort the proportions. It makes it look ugly!
This is flush right algined text. Most of the work that you will see will be flush right aligned. This is because it is much easier to read.
Here we have an example of flush left aligned text. In the english languauge the way that we read is from left to right. Having text left aligned makes the left side jagged making it harder for our eyes to read.
This is centered text. Centered text is pretty much in the same bracket as left aligned text. It has its uses, and looks nice, but for ease of reading this is not an ideal way to set your body text.
ALIGNM
Finally we have the justified text. This is where you force the text to fit within the size of your text box. Although you cannot see it in small amounts of text, doing this automatically it gives the text a lot of unnatural breaks and gaps. As you can see. This text feels airy.
ENT
7
Alignment is the way the text is positioned within the text box margins. It can be flush right, flush left, centred or justified. On this page the explanations are not in the title, but rather in the notes to the left.
stem: main strucutre of the letter
8
It’s important to learn what the different aspects of individual letters are. Here is just a taster as to what the different parts of letters are.
An
ascender: goes above the x height.
atomy bowl: the space that makes a letter round
cap height x height
baseline
descender: goes below the baseline.
Columns: These are the vertical lines. The more columns you have, the more choice you have with your grid. On average designers use a 6 column grid.
Gutter: These are the smaller vertical lines. These separate the columns, allowing you to give equal space between images and texts.
Rows: These are the horizontal columns. This is the area where you would align your text boxes. This gives your page a structured feel.
9
Having a strong grid creates structure and gives freedom without chaos. It brings everything together nicely making the work look as if it belongs together.
GRID
10
Using different weight can be an effective way of separating information. For example having the title in a bold font and the body text in regular.
WEIGHT Condensed: Condensed fonts have been distorted to the right proportions.
Regular: Regular is the most commonly used weight especially for body text, this is because it is the most readable.
Ultra Light: This kind of extremely light font would be used perhaps for information that needs a more subtle and elegant look to it.
“Faces of type are like men’s faces. They have their own expression; their complexion and peculiar twists and turns of line identify them immediately to friends, to whom each is full of identity.” — J.L. Frazier
By Kavi Sivyer