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By
Daniel Will-Harris
Courtesy: IndianOnlineMediaForum
*Type*
In
your lifetime you've seen billions of letters
and millions of words, yet you might never have
consciously noticed the typefaces you read.
Type is important because it's an unconscious
persuader. It attracts
attention, sets the style and tone of a document,
colours how readers
interpret the words, and defines the feeling of
the page — usually without
the reader recognising a particular typeface.
*Type is your personality on paper*
Change
your typeface and you go from casual to formal,
silly to serious, staid to stylish, old fashioned
to modern.
*Type is image*
You'd
dress your best if you were going to an important
meeting, and your documents need to be well-dressed,
too. Type can reinforce your image as a company
or an individual. If you use it consistently enough,
people will start to associate you with certain
typefaces. They might find themselves thinking
of you when they see that typeface, without knowing
why.
*Type is power*
Type
has an effect on you even if you don't consciously
notice it. You can use this power to your advantage
to attract attention, strengthen your message,
and improve your image, or you can overlook it
and work against yourself saying one message with
your text while conveying another with your font.
*Type is communication*
Communication
means relaying information about our logic and
emotions to others. The better you learn to communicate,
the better others will know you, and the better
you'll know yourself because logic, emotion, and
about 98 percent water are what you're made of.
*Type is important*
The
right typeface can encourage people to read your
message. The wrong typeface or bad typography can
make your message go unread.
The two most important things to remember...
There are entire books about using type (I've written
several). People
spend their whole lives studying the practice. But
here's what it's all about:
*One: *Type is on the page to serve the text.
It should make the words
easy to read and provide a suitable background.
Type should not overpower the text.
Type can be beautiful and decorative — but
if type calls undue attention to
itself or makes it more difficult to read the text
— then it becomes
self-conscious and distracting — like bad movie
direction. Of course, some
people will love this and tell you how brilliant
you are — but they won't
read the text. So what's the point?
*Two: There are no good and bad typefaces,
there are appropriate and inappropriate typefaces.
Think about your reader and the feeling you want
to convey, then choose a typeface that fits.
Simplistic? Maybe so. But if everyone followed these
two rules, you would
have read more things in your life, and understood
better what you did read.
Type psych 101
The most common question I'm asked (besides "if
you were a tree, what kind would you be (the answer,
of course, is "Pecan") is "What font
should I use?"
And the answer is "It all depends." The
most important point you need to
realise about type is that it's emotional. No, it's
not going to get all weepy after watching Out Of
Africa unless you printed it on an ink-jet printer
and you're watching the movie in a convertible at
a drive-in on a rainy night.
Type is emotional on a subliminal level because
of the connotations it
conveys. Here's the best example I can give (I've
tried thousands of them
and everyone seems to understand this one): Helvetica
is the typeface used
on IRS forms. Now, how do you think you're going
to feel when you read
something set in Helvetica? You may not consciously
realise that it's the
same typeface the IRS uses, you may not even know
it's Helvetica. You may be under the impression
that "Helvetica" is the name of a small
imported sports car from Hell, or you may even know
that Helvetica means "Swiss" in some foreign
language (Latin). But none of that matters. What
matters is that you've seen that typeface before,
and not under the most pleasant circumstances.
Naturally, this little example only works in countries
where Helvetica is used for tax forms. In Switzerland,
where virtually everything is set in Helvetica (and
tax forms end up looking like catalogs for both
lingerie and heavy equipment--the kind you're not
supposed to drive, or wear, after taking most over-the-counter
cold remedies), then it won't have the same connotations
that it has in the U.S.A.
What's appropriate?
If your business is one that needs to be taken seriously,
such as banking,
don't choose a whimsical typeface such as University
Roman or you'll lose
credibility. If you have a fun business, such as
a party service, don't use
a serious typeface such as Helvetica or you'll come
across as boring.
With that in mind, we get to the key to choosing
the best typeface for the job: finding the *most
appropriate* typeface. Not the prettiest, not the
most space-efficient, but the most appropriate.
If you're planning on getting a tattoo like Cher
or Roseanne, I suggest you
forgo the cliche butterfly or heart and instead
use the words "Most Appropriate." Aha,
but what typeface will you use? Why, the most
appropriate, of course.
If the absolutely most important thing about your
document is that it has to
be easy to read by anyone of any age with any kind
of eyesight under any
kind of lighting conditions, than the typeface you
choose must fit those
criteria and you'll probably end up with something
that has a large x-height
such as Cheltenham, Melior, or Serifa. If the most
important thing is that
it looks traditional, then you'll choose a typeface
such as Centaur, Bembo,
Bodoni, Galliard, Palatino, or Weiss. If you want
something casual and
friendly, you'll choose something like Cheltenham,
Souvenir, or Bitstream
Cooper.
How do you tell which font is formal or informal?
Check out Esperfonto.com. Or look at it and decide
for yourself. Hand out samples to readers and ask
them what it reminds them of. Your particular readership
may just love Helvetica, especially if they're tax
accountants. So, you see, Helvetica really does
have a place — when you want to scare people
or look cold and heartless.
Here's the same text for a hotel set in different
typefaces-notice what
different feelings are conveyed, just by using different
typefaces
Univers LinoScript
Think about your reader and the feeling you want
to convey, then choose a
typeface that fits. If you aren't sure which typefaces
are appropriate,
visit Esperfonto. Esperfonto is an interactive system
that helps you choose the most appropriate typeface
for you particular job. Tell it if your piece is
formal or casual, and then choose from a number
of impressions. Esperfonto will then provide you
with a list of typefaces that fit your needs. If
you don't know what the faces look like, Esperfonto
even provides on-screen samples.
The least you need to know to get the most out
of type
Typographers would like you to believe that type
is one of life's great
mysteries. They say things like, "You can't
use it correctly without years
of experience," or "It's complicated and
if you do it wrong you'll look like an idiot."
These people are not unlike Parisians who make fun
of you if you even try to speak French but don't
do it perfectly.
Type doesn't have to be intimidating if you think
about it like this: you've been looking at type
for years. You've been reading it since you were
a kid. You know what it looks like. It's obvious
when it's hard to read.
At least 80% of typography is common sense (this
is not just some random
number grabbed out of the air; it's a random number
plucked from my
brain). Sure, there are a few things you learned
in school that you need to
unlearn, but overall, the basics of good type are
just that, basic.
We'll start with the rules. Yes, yes, I know, you
hate rules, but these are really short, simple rules
— no dates, no capital cities, just a few simple
things to remember. You don't even have to remember
them if you don't want to, just put them up on the
wall and check them once in a while.
| 1. |
Body text should be between 10 and 12 point,
with 11 point best for printing to 300 dot-per-inch
printers. Use the same typeface, typesize,
and leading for all your body copy. |
| 2. |
Use
enough leading (or line-spacing). Always add
at least 1 or 2 points to the type size. Example:
If you're using 10 point type, use 12 point
leading. Automatic line height will do this
for you--never use less than this or your
text will be cramped and hard to read. |
| 3. |
Don't
make your lines too short or too long. Optimum
size: Over 30
characters and under 70 characters. |
| 4. |
Make
paragraph beginnings clear. Use either an
indent or block style for paragraphs. Don't
use both. Don't use neither, either. |
| 5. |
Use
only one space after a period, not two. |
| 6. |
Don't
justify text unless you have to. If you justify
text you must use hyphenation. |
| 7. |
Don't
underline anything, especially not headlines
or subheads since lines separate them from
the text with which they belong. |
| 8. |
Use
italics instead of underlines. |
| 9. |
Don't
set long blocks of text in italics, bold,
or all caps because they're harder to read. |
| 10. |
Leave
more space above headlines and subheads than
below them, and
avoid setting them in all caps. Use subheads
liberally to help readers find what they're
looking for. |
Back
to Style guide index
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If your business is one that needs to be taken seriously,
such as banking, don't choose a whimsical typeface
such as University Roman or you'll lose credibility.
If you have a fun business, such as a party service,
don't use a serious typeface such as Helvetica or
you'll come across as boring.
