During the days of hot metal, each type size featured its own specific design, created to improve legibility and harmony. Today, more and more new typefaces use this concept. Small caps, Capitals. Small caps italic, Capitals italic. Lowercases (with their ligatures). Lowercases (with their ligatures).
ggg 0123456 0123456
àbcdé ABCDÉGHIJKLMÔPQRS àbcdé ABCDÉGHIJKLMÔPQRST
0123456 àbcdéfghijklmnôpqrstüvwxyz&fict 0123456 àbcdéfghijklmnôpqrstüvwxyz&fiflffict $¢£¥ƒ€ geometrical
Small Medium Large
Lowercase figures recommended for text setting.
Weights: Thin, Light, Normal, Regular, Demi bold, Bold, Extrabold, Black. Widths: Condensed, Narrow, Normal, Wide, Extra wide.
Caps figures recommended for caps setting
Monetary symbols are generally designed to be the same width as figures.
Letterforms that take their structure from humanistic handwriting are more legible than purely geometrical forms. humanistic
bar, arms
cuppen step
hairline
ear
top serif
ascender
Ascenders Capitals
counter
ear
x-height stem
terminal
Descenders curve, stress
tail
lobe
descender
shoulder
Pedagogy panel: Typefaces & typography minimal knowledge. Conceptualized in 2004 by Jean François Porchez.
Typeface without serifs
Typeface with serifs.
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Les yeux du lecteur parcourent la ligne de texte par sautillement Les yeux du lecteur parcourent la ligne de texte par sautillement
Lowercase text is easier to read. Words set it capitals have less contrast, and can take 20% longer to read.
Top parts of lowercases are more distinctive: The eye focuses on the top third part of letters (such as a, n and e) during reading process.
Ligatures improve the shape of words set in small sizes.
Schematic reading process.
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Typefaces with open counters are easier to distinguish.
Les yeux du lecteur parcourent la ligne de texte par sautillements successifs marqués par des fixations d’environ 0,2 à 0,35 seconde et par des aller-retours plus ou moins importants selon la dihculté de compréhension du texte.
Paragraph alignements. Ragged right jutified on the left
Book layouts need to follow Golden section and its variantes to create optically correct proportions.
Jutified Typefaces don’t grow on trees, they are all original designs.
Verdana
Georgia
Matthew Carter, 1996
Matthew Carter, 1996
Helvetica
Times
Trebuchet
Palatino
Gill sans
Garamond
Futura
Optima
Arial
Didot
Vincent Connare, 1996
Eric Gill, 1932
Paul Renner, 1928
Robin Nicholas, 1982
Stanley Morison, 1932
Hermann Zapf, 1956
Ragged left jutified on the right, (less legible).
The grid helps to create clear navigation on the page. It ensures the presence of margins, key aspect of good balance.
Centered (less legible).
Claude Garamond, 1530 into a version designed by Jean François Porchez, 2002
Hermann Zapf, 1958
Firmin Didot, 1784 into a version designed by Adrian Frutiger, 1991
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Max Miedinger, 1959
The current versions of historical typefaces are interpretations (in the same way as leaders in classical music) that also encompass major contributions from their contemporary designers.