duotone viewpoints on typography
Type Cube at the Tampa Type Casting:
11 rules of typography and how to break them
Museum of Art
Grooming the Font making meaningful marks with typography
Back to Basics: Stopping Sloppy Typography
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
duotone viewpoints on typography
4/15
Issue #001
2
Type Casting
7
Grooming the Font
10
Type Cube
13
Back to Basics:
Steven Brower
7
2 Robert Bringhurst
Kelsey Hawley
13 Stopping Sloppy Typography John D. Berry
10
Type Casting
About Steven Brower
Steven Brower is an award-winning former Creative Director for PRINT, a former art director at the New York Times and currently for The Nation, co-author and designer of Woody Guthrie Artworks (Rizzoli, 2005), and author and designer of Satchmo: The Wonderful Art and World of Louis Armstrong (Abrams, 2009). In addition his writings on design and pop culture have appeared in several publications. He is the director of the “Get Your Masters with the Masters� MFA program for working professionals and educators at Marywood University in Scranton, PA.
IMAGE BY galleryhip.com
As Robert N. Jones stated in an article in the May 1960 issue of Print magazine:
“It is my belief that there has never been a type- face that is so badly designed that it could not be handsomely and effectively used in the hands of the right . . . designer.�3 Of course, this was before the novelty type explosion that took place later that decade, and, again, after the advent of the Macintosh computer.
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Type Casting
M
y first job in book design was at
New American Library, a publisher of mass-market books. I was thrilled to be hired. It was exactly where I wanted to be. I love the written word, and viewed this as my entrance into a world I wanted to participate in. Little did I suspect at the time that mass-market books, also known as “pocket” books (they measure approximately 4” x 7”, although I have yet to wear a pocket they fit comfortably into), were viewed in the design world as the tawdry stepchild of true literature and design, gaudy and unsophisticated. I came to understand that this was due to the fact that mass-market books, sold extensively in super- markets and convenience stores, had more in common with soap detergent and cereal boxes than with their much more dignified older brother, the hardcover first edition book. Indeed, the level of design of paperbacks was as slow to evolve as a box of Cheerios. On the other hand, hardcover books, as if dressed in evening attire, wore elegant and sophisticated jackets. Next in line in terms of standing, in both the literary and design worlds, was the trade paper edition, a misnomer that does not refer to a specific audience within an area of work, but, rather, to the second edition of the hardcover, or first edition, that sports a paperbound cover. Trade paperbacks usually utilize the same interior printing as the hardcover, and are roughly the same size (generally, 6” x 9”). Mass-market books were not so lucky. The interior pages of the original edition were shrunk down, with no regard for the final type size or the eyes of the viewer. The interiors tended to be printed on cheap paper stock, prone to yellowing over time. The edges were often dyed to mask the different grades of paper used. The covers were usually quite loud, treated with a myriad of special effects (i.e., gold or silver foil, embossing and de-bossing, spot lamination, die cuts, metallic and Day-Glo pantone colors, thermography, and even holography), all designed to jump out at you and into your shopping cart as you walk down the aisle. The tradition of mass-market covers had more in common with, and, perhaps, for the most part is the descendant of, pulp magazine covers of earlier decades, with their colorful titles and over-the-top illustrations, than that of its more stylish, larger, and more expensive cousins. What I Learned So, when I made my entry into the elite world of literature, I began in the “bullpen” of a mass-market house. I believed I would be afforded a good opportunity to learn something about type and image. Indeed, in my short tenure there, I employed more display typefaces in a year and a half than I will in the rest of my lifetime. And, I abused type more than I ever dreamed possible.
There, type was always condensed or stretched so the height would be greater in a small format. The problem was that the face itself became distorted, as if it was put on the inquisitionist rack, with the horizontals remaining “thick” and the verticals thinning out. Back then, when type was “spec’d” and sent out to a typesetter, there was a standing order at the type house to condense all type for our company 20 percent. Sometimes, we would cut the type and extend it by hand, which created less distortion but still odd-looking faces. Once, I was instructed by the art director to cut the serifs off a face, to suit his whim. It’s a good thing there is no criminal prosecution for type abuse. The art director usually commissioned the art for these titles. Therefore, the job of the designers was to find the “appropriate” type solution that worked with these illustrations to create the package. It was here that I learned my earliest lessons in the clichés of typography. Mass- market paperbacks are divided into different genres, distinct categories that define their audience and subject matter. Though they were unspoken rules, handed down from generation to generation, here is what I learned about type during my employment:
Example
Genre
Square Serif Western
Script and Cursive
LED Faces
Romance
Typeface Bou Western Snell Roundhand
Science Fiction SD LED screen
Neuland
African (in spite of the fact African that the typeface is of German origin)
Latin
Mystery
Times New Roman
Fat, Round Serif Faces
Children’s
Caviar Dreams
Sans Serif
Nonfiction
FedraSans
Hand Scrawl
Horror
Scrawl
1950s Bouncy Type
Human/Teen Titles
SignPainter
And so it went. Every month, we were given five to six titles we were responsible for, and every month, new variations on old themes hung up on the wall. For a brief period I was assigned all the romance titles, which, themselves, were divided into subgenres (historical, regency, contemporary, etc). I made the conscious decision to create the very best romance covers around. Sure, I would use script and cursive type, but I would use better script and cursive type, so distinctive, elegant, and beautiful that I, or anyone else, would recognize the difference immediately. (When, six months after I left the job, I went to view my achievements at the local K-Mart, I could not pick out any of my designs from all the rest on the bookracks.) Soon after, I graduated to art director of a small publishing house. The problem was, I still knew little of and had little confidence in, typography. However, by this time, I knew I knew little about typography.
My solution, therefore, was to create images that contained the type as an integral part of the image, in a play on vernacular design, thereby avoiding the issue entirely. Thus began a series of collaborations with talented illustrators and photographers, in which the typography of the jacket was incorporated as part of the illustration. Mystery books especially lent themselves well to this endeavor. A nice thing about this approach is that it has a certain informality and familiarity with the audience. It also made my job easier, because I did not have to paste up much type for the cover (as one had to do back in the days of t-squares and wax), since it was, for the most part, self-contained within the illustration. This may seem like laziness on my part, but hey, I was busy. Eventually, my eye began to develop, and my awareness and appreciation of good typography increased. I soon learned the pitfalls that most novice designers fall into, like utilizing a quirky novelty face does not equal creativity and usually calls attention to the wrong aspects of the solution. The importance of good letterspacing became paramount. Finding the right combination of a serif and sans serif face to evoke the mood of the material within was now my primary concern. The beauty of a classically rendered letterform now moved me, to quote Eric Gill, as much “as any sculpture or painted picture.� I developed an appreciation for the rules of typography.
IMAGE BY S. J. Aisling
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Type Casting
The Rules As I’ve said, it is a common mistake among young designers to think a quirky novelty face equals creativity. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. If anything, for the viewer, it has the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than being the total sum of individual expression, it simply calls attention to itself, detracting from, rather than adding to, the content of the piece. It is no substitute for a well-reasoned conceptual solution to the design problem at hand.
As a general rule, no more than two faces should be utilized in any given design, usually the combination of a serif face and a sans serif face. There are thousands to choose from, but I find I have reduced the list to five or six in each category that I have used as body text throughout my career. Popular Serif Typefaces
B C
Bodoni Bodoni
Bodoni
Caslon Caslon Caslon
C
Cheltenham Cheltenham Cheltenham
G
Garamond
Garamond Garamond
You should never condense or extend type. As I stated, this leads to unwanted distortions. Much care and consideration went into the design of these faces, and they should be treated with respect. There are thousands of condensed faces to choose from without resorting to the horizontal and vertical scale functions. Do not use text type as display. Even though the computer will enlarge the top beyond the type designer’s intention, this may result in distortions. Do not use display type as text. Often, display type that looks great large can be difficult to read when small. Do not stack type. The result is odd-looking spacing that looks as if it is about to tumble on top of itself. The thinness of the letter I is no match for the heft of an O sitting on top of it. As always, there are ways to achieve stacking successfully, but this requires care.
Popular Sans Serif Typefaces
F
Futura Futura Futur a
G
N
Gill Sans Gill Sans
Gill Sans
News Gothi c Ne ws Gothi c
Also, as I noted, much care should be given to letterspacing the characters of each word. This is not as simple as it seems. The computer settings for type are rife with inconsistencies that need to be corrected optically. Certain combinations of letterforms are more difficult to adjust than others. It is paramount that even optical (as opposed to actual) spacing is achieved, regardless of the openness or closeness of the kerning. It helps if you view the setting upside down, or backwards on a light box or sun-filled window, or squint at the copy to achieve satisfactory spacing. Be careful with drop shadows. I would caution you in the judicious use of drop shadows. Shadows these days can be rendered easily in programs such as Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator, and convincingly, too. The problem is, it is so easily done that it is overdone. Thus, the wholesale usage of soft drop shadows has become the typographic equivalent of clip art. Viewers know they have seen it before. Rather than being evocative, it mainly evokes the program it was created in. There should be a better solution to readability. Perhaps the background or the color of the type can be adjusted. Perhaps the type should be paneled or outlined. There are an infinite number of possible variations. If you must use a solid drop shadow, it should never be a color. Have you ever seen a shadow in life that is blue, yellow, or green? It should certainly never be white. Why would a shadow be 100 percent lighter than what is, in theory, casting the shadow? White shadows create a hole in the background, and draw the eye to the shadow, and not where you want it to go: the text.
The handed-down wisdom is: If you need a drop shadow to make it read, the piece isn’t working. These solid drop shadows always look artificial, since, in reality, there is no such thing as a solid drop shadow. Justified text looks more formal than flush left, rag right. Most books are set justified, while magazines are often flush left, rag right. Centered copy will appear more relaxed than asymmetrical copy. Large blocks of centered type can create odd-looking shapes that detract from the copy contained within. Column width. It is also common today to see very wide columns of text, with the copy set at a small point size.
The problem is that a very wide column is hard to read because it forces the eye to move back and forth, tiring the reader. On the other hand, a very narrow measure also is objectionable, because the phrases and words are too cut up, with the eye jumping from line to line. We, as readers, do not read letter by letter, or even word by word, but, rather, phrase by phrase. A consensus favors an average of ten to twelve words per line.1 Column width. It is also common today to see very wide columns of text, with the copy set at a small point size. The problem is that a very wide column is hard to read because it forces the eye to move back and forth, tiring the reader. On the other hand, a very narrow measure also is objectionable, because the phrases and words are too cut up, with the eye jumping from line to line. We, as readers, do not read letter by letter, or even word by word, but, rather, phrase by phrase. A consensus favors an average of ten to twelve words per line.1 Don’t forget to adjust leading. Lastly, too much leading between lines also makes the reader work too hard jumping from line to line, while too little leading makes it hard for the reader to discern where one line ends and another begins. The audience should always be paramount in the designer’s approach, and it is the audience—not the whim of the designer, or even the client—that defines the level of difficulty and ease with which a piece is read. As Eric Gill said in 1931, “A book is primarily a thing to be read.”2 Type size. A final consideration is the size of the type. As a rule of thumb, mass-market books tend to be 8 point for reasons of space. A clothbound book, magazine, or newspaper usually falls into the 9.5 point to 12 point range. Oversized art books employ larger sizes—generally, 14 point to 18 point or more. Use the right type. Choosing the right typeface for your design can be time-consuming. There are thousands to choose from. Questions abound. Is the face legible at the setting I want? Does it evoke what I want it to evoke? Is it appropriate to the subject matter? There are no easy answers. When a student of mine used Clarendon in a self-promotion piece, I questioned why he chose a face that has 1950s connotations, mainly in connection with Reid Miles’ Blue Note album covers. He answered, “Because I thought it was cool.” I lectured him profusely on selecting type simply based on its “coolness.” Later, I relayed the incident to Seymour Chwast, of the legendary Pushpin Group (formerly Pushpin Studios).
He observed that Clarendon is actually a Victorian face, which he and his peers revived as young designers in the 1950s. When I asked him why they chose to bring this arcane face back to life, he replied, “Because we thought it was cool.” Don’t forget to adjust leading. Lastly, too much leading between lines also makes the reader work too hard jumping from line to line, while too little leading makes it hard for the reader to discern where one line ends and another begins. The audience should always be paramount in the designer’s approach, and it is the audience—not the whim of the designer, or even the client—that defines the level of difficulty and ease with which a piece is read. As Eric Gill said in 1931, “A book is primarily a thing to be read.”2
Cover for a printer’s promotion for Offset and Fotosatz typefaces IMAGE BY ROSMARIE TISSI: FLEXIBLE POSTMODERNIST
Breaking The Rules Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. An infinite number of faces can be used within one design, particularly when you employ a broadside-style type solution, a style that developed with the woodtype settings of the nineteenth century. Another style, utilizing a myriad of faces, is that influenced by the Futurist and Dada movements of the early twentieth century. As Robert N. Jones stated in an article in the May 1960 issue of Print magazine: “It is my belief that there has never been a type- face that is so badly designed that it could not be handsomely and effectively used in the hands of the right . . . designer.”3 Of course, this was before the novelty type explosion that took place later that decade, and, again, after the advent of the Macintosh computer. Still, Jeffery Keedy, a contemporary type designer whose work appears regularly in Emigre, con- curs: “Good designers can make use of almost anything. The typeface is the point of departure, not the destination.” Note the caveat “almost.” Still, bad use of good type is much less desirable than good use of bad type. When I first began in publishing, a coworker decided to let me in on the “secrets” of picking the appropriate face. “If you get a book on Lincoln to design,” he advised, “look up an appropriate typeface in the index of the type specimen book.” He proceeded to do so. “Ah, here we go—‘Log Cabin!’” While, on the extremely rare occasion, I have found this to be a useful method, it’s a good general rule of what not to do. • Notes 1. Eric Gill, “An Essay on Typography” (Sheed and Ward, 1931), p. 136; (Godine, 1988). 2 and 3. Richard Hendel, On Book Design (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Adapted from Publication Design (Delmar Learning, 2004).
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Grooming the Font
About Robert Bringhurst
Bringhurst’s book The Elements of Typographic Style (1992) is considered one of the most influential reference books on typography and book design. The work has been translated into ten languages, and is now in its third edition.
“Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.� - Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Grooming the Font
W
riting begins with the making of
meaningful marks. That is to say, leaving the traces of meaningful gestures. Typography begins with arranging meaningful marks that are already made. In that respect, the practice of typography is like playing the piano – an instrument quite different from the human voice. On the piano, the notes are already fixed, although their order, duration and amplitude are not. The notes are fixed but they can be endlessly rearranged, into meaningful music or meaningless noise. Pianos, however, need to be tuned. The same is true of fonts. To put this in more literary terms, fonts need to be edited just as carefully as texts do – and may need to be re-edited, like texts, when their circumstances change. The editing of fonts, like the editing of texts, begins before their birth and never ends. You may prefer to entrust the editing of your fonts, like the tuning of your piano, to a professional. If you are the editor of a magazine or the manager of a publishing house, that is probably the best way to proceed. But devoted typographers, like lutenists and guitarists, often feel that they themselves must tune the instruments they play. Legal Considerations A font license grants the owner the right to use a typeface in a specific manner as outlined in the license. (Note that in this article we are going to use the terms “font” and “typeface” rather interchangeably.) Every typeface comes with a license of some sort – even those free online typefaces. The big caveat about font licenses is that every type house or designer has the right to create a license of any type. So it is imperative that as a designer you check the specific license for any typeface you use commercially before you use it. You can find these rules in the End-User License Agreement that is “attached” to every font you download or buy. (And if you don’t have one, you can find it with a quick online search.) Digital fonts are usually licensed to the user, not sold outright, and the license terms may vary. Some manufacturers claim to believe that improving a font produced by them is an infringement of their rights. No one believes that tuning a piano or pumping up the tires of a car infringes on the rights of the manufacturer – and this is true no matter whether the car or the piano has been rented, leased or purchased. Printing type was treated the same way from Bi Sheng’s time until the 1980s. Generally speaking, metal type and phototype are treated that way still. In the digital realm, where the font is wholly intangible, those older notions of ownership are under pressure to change. The Linotype Library’s standard font license says that “You may modify the Font’ Software to satisfy your design requirements.” FontShop’s standard license has a similar provision: “You do have the right to modify and alter Font Software for your customary personal and business use, but not for resale or further distribution.” Adobe’s and Agfa Monotype’s licenses contain no such provision. Monotype’s says instead
that “You my not alter Font Software for the purpose of adding any functionality.... You agree not to adapt, modify, alter, translate, convert, or otherwise change the Font Software….” If your license forbids improving the font itself, the only legal way to tune it is through a software override. For example, you can use an external kerning editor to override the kerning table built into the font. This is the least elegant way to do it, but a multitude of errors in fitting and kerning can be masked, if need be, by this means. Ethical and Aesthetic Considerations If it ain’t broke…. Any part of the font can be tuned – lettershapes, character set, character encoding, fitting and sidebearings, kerning table, hinting, and, in an OpenType font, the rules governing character sub-situation. What doesn’t need tuning or fixing shouldn’t be touched. If you want to revise the font just for the sake of revising it, you might do better to design your own instead. And if you hack up someone else’s font for practice, like a biology student cutting up a frog, you might cremate or bury the results. If the font is out of tune, fix it once and for all: One way to refine the typography of a text is to work your way through it line by line, putting space in here, removing it there, and repositioning errant characters one by one. But if these refinements are made to the font itself, you will never need to make them again. They are done for good. Respect the text first of all, the letterforms second, the type designer third, the foundry fourth: The needs of the text should take precedence over the layout of the font, the integrity of the letterforms over the ego of the designer, the artistic sensibility of the designer over the foundry’s desire for profit, and the founder’s craft over a good deal else. Keep on fixing: Check every text you set to see where improvements can be made. Then return to the font and make them. Little by little, you and the instrument – the font, that is – will fuse, and the type you set will start to sing. Remember, though, this process never ends. There is no such thing as a perfect font. If there are defective glyphs, mend them: If the basic lettershapes of your font are poorly drawn, it is probably better to abandon it rather than edit it. But many fonts combine superb basic letterforms with alien or sloppy supplementary characters. Where this is the case, you can usually rest assured that the basic letterforms are the work of a real designer, whose craftsmanship merits respect, and that the supplementary characters were added by an inattentive foundry employee. The latter’s errors should be remedied at once.
You may find for example that analphabetic characters such as @ + ± × = • - − © are too big or too small, too light or too dark, too high, or too low, or are otherwise out of tune with the basic alphabet. You may also find that diacritics in glyphs such as å çé ñ ô ü are poorly drawn, poorly positioned, or out of scale with the letterforms.
If you need to add many such characters, you will need to make a supplementary font or, better yet, an enlarged font (TrueType or OpenType). If these are for your own use only the extra characters can be placed wherever you wish. If the fonts are too be shared, every new glyph should be labeled with its PostScript name and Unicode number.
If text figures, ligatures or other glyphs you need on a regular basis don’t reside on the base font, move them: For readable text, you almost always need figures, but most digital fonts are sold with titling figures instead. Most digital fonts also include the ligatures fi and fl but not ff, ffi, ffl, fj or ffj. You may find at least some of the missing glyphs on a supplementary font (an ‘expert font’), but that is not enough. Put all the basic glyphs together on the base font.
Check and correct the sidebearings: The spacing of letters is part of the essence of their design. A well-made font should need little adjustment, except for refining the kerning. Remember, however, that kerning tables exist for the sake of problematical sequences such as ƒ*, gy, “A, To, Va and 74. If you find that simple pairs such as oo or oe require kerning, this is a sign that the letters are poorly fitted. It is better to correct the sidebearings than to write a bloated kerning table. The spacing of many analphabetics, however, has as much to do with editorial style as with typographic design. Unless your fonts are custom made, neither the type designer nor the founder can know what you need or prefer. I habitually increase the left sidebearing of semicolon, colon, question and exclamation marks, and the inner bearings of guillemets and parentheses, in search of a kind of Channel Island compromise: neither the tight fitting preferred by most anglophone editors nor the wide-open spacing customary in France. If I worked in French all the time, I might increase these sidebearings further.
If, like a good Renaissance typographer, you use only upright parentheses and bracketscopy the upright forms from the roman to the italic font. Only then can they be kerned and spaced correctly without fuss. If glyphs you need are missing altogether, make them: Standard ISO digital text fonts (PostScript or TrueType) have 256 slots and carry a basic set of Western European characters. Eastern European characters such as ą ć đ ė ğ ħ ī ň ő ŗ ș ť ů are usually missing. So are the Welsh sorts ŵ and ŷ, and a host of characters needed for African, Asian and Native American languages.
The components required to make these characters may be present on the font, and assembling the pieces is not hard, but you need a place to put whatever character you make. If you need only a few and do not care about system compatibility, you can place them in wasted slots – e.g., the ^ < > \ | ~ ` positions, which are accessible directly from the keyboard, or slots such as ¢ ÷ 123 ™ ☐ 0/100 l, which can be reached through insertion utilities or by typing character codes or by customizing the keyboard.
Three options for spacing of basic analphabets in Monotype digital Centaur: foundry issue(top); French spacing(bottom); and something in between. Making such adjustments one by one by the insertion of fixed spaces can be tedious. It is easier by far, if you know what you want and you want it consistently, to incorporate your preferences into the font. •
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Type Cube
About Kelsey Hawley
Kelsey Hawley is a student at Flagler College studying Graphic Design.
“It’s an exciting article about a subject I love and know a lot about” - Kelsey Hawley, Type Cube
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Type Cube
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Bis dolores adi aut quidunt vendam, test, officiliqui tempore mquatium alique molor anditatur? Nonsequodisi ut excest ut evel et volorit magnatus dipsamet aborupta num inctet eos quam, conseque parum quodi torehenis adi into idis con et aut eum exerum coratec uptasimolor rem dis dis magnit, illam, untio to tem cus re vendige nditiis sant qui re labore sus alitectur, ex esecus nobisci denese volum faccaep erempos apienis sinctum fugia qui tem in peribusa vero mi, tem doloriae. Tatiatiorro odit molupta ssimi, sedi reium rest ommolut abor maxim quateni endelignimus dolent qui dendipsunt volorum, occupta tectis rempore pudandiat invel ipsusapel ium et la sed quibusame nobis sitam quamusdam nim quiatem et pelland ipicipidest volorum as doles et laborias rerspe sectet, nobit que dolorib eariorporum erro estenih illaccae nullaborerit ute digenitatis accus, opta poriandipsus sunt di saped est dolorestia volori ipsa sequibus, sum vollaborerum vitio id ente nihicia aperchi lluptat quiasperum volestiur? Aque esequiscimus expella ccuptum aut quos dios ipsus dellendae. Nem que dentectios eum laborun dandae nonsentis dus dolorem faccum untinto rempere stemporitem acimpore apiet as sitest, solorectore officabo. Et pa cusaeperat quae parchiciates eiciur? Nequistestio tendant et et illab id et repe por sam volla volessusciat lam ut ratur modi consequ amendit, sunt parunt laccaborrum, quas molectur? Lestorias pa vent, odis et lam resciur? Am, ipiendero veratet asimus, voluptia dolestibus dic tecust fugit, ut quas ulpa cum vent et qui volum facerem porercienest volupta ecatur aperum fugiasp idelibus rem que omnistrum faccumet, omnis expliciis dolupta non pla con nobis volorem hil mint hari am coria cumenim illacerspit quodisqui que pel ipsae sinvel isquo qui doluptatibus magnihilic tem quid quiatint volupturis aspero velit volupta ped ullab iur? Quiae. Lectem iministis dolorendebis inctore periasp iendis iliquid elenis estibus nonsed que prorro intempore mossit facernatibea neceatum et facea deruptas non et exerum quam, nes parci cus mi, sunt dolupta testia digenis doluptam enissitae conecabo. Rovid ut que pos id es ex elicia dolor audit eos doluptatia voluptate veribus, quatur sequam, aceatae dolupta que dolorup tassum et hiciis es expliquae quibus quam duciis simincto estisqu isitatur animintur, intur secearum voluptur? Igenis entoriaest pro consequi inum conseratur rerenitat voloribus niet quosand itatin prore volorum qui to cum rae. Us, ant lab id quunt volupit vitio. Itatur, cus sincte et omnia ipidem est im hilluptur, cus debis prorisime voluptatus eum voluptatus aut audignimil minus volupta nemperc hiliquid quaest, samet velescimo od explaut et fuga. Nequi andesti onsequae vendiam aut atur, simus seque dolupta sus ni aut ullorerio. At ut ommolectatur as andipic tem. Perum eos as el mincimi, sequod quam volores torehenis dolla consequatem laborenti blaut que prat. Occae soloritiame dolupidi il et qui omnis quodis sequam volore, officatur? Harum aut doluptaqui officae labore, invendu ciistibus magnit quatum accuptiis millumq uodipsunt ommolore et landi aut aliquae pa sae nem fugitiis dolupid maios audaecum quis dolenihit, id quis dolorep erionsequos apiduci tiatinusda dolupta descia nobita solupis es autatia sus.
Is conem volor aut hariore ritate vent dolor sim dolum quo volorum es ea doluptia nis aut apellan iscium aut quaturiatur sit atem que nonseri ostiature sum ipiciis et que digenimodit eos saeritia sediam acil erit invendant landit repudigendae net, tet, alibus doluptuscil maio iliquasinus et ut ad quas audi im sero blab id et hicillab inctiberisti blam quid ut etur? Aspient fuga. Ma parum fugita apel modis dolectusam nis veribuscit quam que nobit, nullab imus assunt etur aut dolupta nimillate sum aut quid quae as audae sunt adipsam, quiam necusto culpa aut et officim oluptaspidis doluptiissi blandant esequam coresti busciis magnam volo de remporem excessi mendem et quaeped maio est hit vel maximpore dolupta ium illaborunt facea dolupis adit dunto bea comnisit od quuntur sinus dipsa quam qui quossimusant et laccatur am quia nume nate lam, quia quis ilis ute sereici magnate reribus et quatquo volupta tusanim iliscitae molene erum venti vendes intias arum ellitas et voluptium nus mincillabo. Et et apellup tatiatur, consere mporemolupta qui beaquae ceperum est est fuga. Name non ea cor rerianis rem. Et evendae quias as alibuscim raecabo rempor atur? Quissecus plaut quatationse quas sinvendant que restiis idis aut quiatis iducid ut int. Ibus estium as mincitatis sed molum quos comnis etur aut venihil molo eicimin et es ped quiaes nemporehent et rentis aut ad ullit, optaturia comnis consed expliqui cus min re cument latur? Laborem enist, od quod minimus aperspeles eos ne venet mo essi commoditinim voluptatur sinctionsed magnimp eribusdae net volupta quaest litatur, il ipitem et ea volorror aborect oribus. At volora nis utatis cusandem essinci mintibu santem que est, ese con es ab is dem qui blabore pudam, suntis cus il is alit vid es dolo berovid exceaqu idelibus, quam faccatis atur, sime ped quam, si rest, sum id et escid eos ellorrum non nos aceperuntur? Quid To est pores volum quodit ligentecere comnisquis volupic aborerum fugia voluptatur sequia aut autem. Bit adi comnis nonsecessit eum ut eumquid eost, sa que exeri aliatatatem enimagnis at enis derest, volupta tinciatat ra seque voluptas volentem quatem iur?
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APRIL 2015 duotone.com
Back to Basics:
Stopping Sloppy Typography
John D. Berry The style of the letters is traditional, with serifs; it looks like a line of dialogue, which is exactly what it’s supposed to look like. Since this is a billboard, and the text is the entire message of the billboard, it’s a witty comment on the fact that you are looking at “me”— that is, the message on the billboard—as you drive past. But, as my partner and I drove past and spotted this billboard for the first time, we both simultaneously voiced the same response: “No, I’m looking at your apostrophe!”
There’s a billboard along the freeway in San Francisco that’s entirely typograpic, and very simple. Against a bright blue background, white letters spell out a single short line, set in quotation marks: “Are you lookin’ at me?”
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
T
he quotation marks around the sentence
are real quotation marks, which blend in with the style of the lettering—“typographers’ quotes,” as they’re sometimes called—but the apostrophe at the end of “lookin’” is, disconcertingly, a single “typewriter quote,” a straight up-and-down line with a rounded top and a teardrop tail at the bottom. To anyone with any sensitivity to the shapes of letters, whether they know the terms of typesetting or not, this straight apostrophe is like a fart in a symphony—boorish, crude, out of place, and distracting. The normal quotation marks at the beginning and end of the sentence just serve to make the loud “blat!” of the apostrophe stand out. If that had been the purpose of the billboard, it would have been very effective. But unless the billboards along Highway 101 have become the scene of an exercise in typographic irony, it’s just a big ol’ mistake. Really big, and right out there in plain sight. The Devil Is in the Details This may be a particularly large-scale example, but it’s not unusual. Too much of the signage and printed matter that we read—and that we, if we’re designers or typographers, create—is riddled with mistakes like this. It seems that an amazing number of people responsible for creating graphic matter are incapable of noticing when they get the type wrong. This should not be so. These fine points ought to be covered in every basic class in typography, and basic typography ought to be part of the education of every graphic designer. But clearly, this isn’t the case—or else a lot of designers skipped that part of the class, or have simply forgotten what they once learned about type. Or, they naively believe the software they use will do the job for them. Maybe it’s time for a nationwide—no, worldwide—program of remedial courses in using type. Automated Errors As my own small gesture toward improvement, I’ll point out a couple of the more obvious problems—in the hope that maybe, maybe, they’ll become slightly less commonplace, at least for awhile. Typewriter quotes and straight apostrophes are actually on the wane, thanks to word-processing programs and page-layout programs that offer the option of automatically changing them to typographers’ quotes on the fly. (I’m not sure what has made the phenomenon I spotted on that billboard so common, but I’ve noticed a lot of examples recently of text where the double quotation marks are correct but the apostrophes are straight.) But those same automatic typesetting routines have created another almost universal mistake: where an apostrophe at the beginning of a word appears backwards, as a single open quotation mark. You see this in abbreviated dates (‘99, ‘01) and in colloquial spellings, like ‘em for them. The program can turn straight quotes into typographers’
quotes automatically, making any quotation mark at the start of a word into an open quote, and any quotation mark at the end of a word into a closed quote, but it has no way of telling that the apostrophe at the beginning of ‘em isn’t supposed to be a single open quote, so it changes it into one. The only way to catch this is to make the correction by hand— every time. Anemic Type The other rude noise that has become common in the symphony hall is fake small caps. Small caps are a wonderful thing, very useful and some- times elegant; fake small caps are a distraction and an abomination. Fake caps are what you get when you use a program’s “small caps” command. The software just shrinks the full-size capital letters down by a predetermined percentage—which gives you a bunch of small, spindly- looking caps all huddled together in the middle of the text. If the design calls for caps and small caps—that is, small caps for the word but a full cap for the first letter—it’s even worse, since the full-size caps draw attention to themselves because they look so much heavier than the smaller caps next to them. (If you’re using caps and small caps to spell out an acronym, this might make sense; in that case, you might want the initial caps to stand out. Otherwise, it’s silly. (And—here comes that word again— distracting.) If it weren’t for a single exception, I’d advise everyone to just forget about the “small caps” command—forget it ever existed, and never, ever, touch it again. (The exception is Adobe InDesign, which is smart enough to find the real small caps in an OpenType font that includes them, and use them when the “small caps” command is invoked. Unfortunately, InDesign isn’t smart enough, or independent enough, to say, “No, thanks,” when you invoke “small caps” in a font that doesn’t actually have any. It just goes ahead and makes those familiar old fake small caps.) You don’t really need small caps at all, in most typesetting situations; small caps are a typo- graphic refinement, not a crutch. If you’re going to use them, use real small caps: properly designed letters with the form of caps, but usually a little wider, only as tall as the x-height or a little taller, and with stroke weights that match the weight of the lowercase and the full caps of the same type- face. Make sure you’re using a typeface that has true small caps, if you want small caps. Letterspace them a little, and set them slightly loose, the same way you would (or at least should) with a word in all caps; it makes the word much more readable.
Pay Attention, Now There are plenty of other bits of remedial typesetting that we ought to study, but those will do for now. The obvious corollary to all this is, to produce well-typeset words, whether in a single phrase on a billboard or several pages of text, you have to pay attention. Proofread. Proofread again. Don’t trust the defaults of any program you use. Look at good typesetting and figure out how it was done, then do it yourself. Don’t be sloppy. Aim for the best. Words to live by, I suppose. And, certainly, words to set type by. •
APRIL 2015 duotone.com
APRIL 2015 duotone.com