Posted by JP | Posted in Typography | Posted on 25-05-2008
The term typography refers to exactly what you’re reading. Yep, you just read some more. Any text you see with the eye is an element of typography. But typography is not simply letters arranged into words. Typography is an art. But if you know what to look for even a novice can tell the good from the bad.
to serif or not to serif: Those who specialize in typography will often throw around words like serif, sans serif and kerning. So what does it all mean? Like everything else in the design world there are several rules of thumb to use when deciding which type of font to use. Broken down into the most basic format there are 2 main types of fonts: Serif and Sans Serif (there are others like slab & script, but for the sake of this article we’ll deal only with these two).
Serif refers to any font that has “tails”. Tails are the little extension that appear at the bases of the letters. A classic example of this type of font is anything in the Times family. Serif fonts are great to use for large blocks of text. Most books and magazine columns are set in a serif font. The little tails on the letters guide the readers eye from letter to letter allowing the human brain to quickly scan a word.
Serif fonts are perfect for printed pieces where print resolution is high (at least 300 dpi). The letters are crisp and clear and the tails can aid the reader without obstructions.
For screen resolutions such as a Web page, a sans-serif font is optimal. Sans-serif simply means “no-serif” Breaking it down further these fonts are the ones that do NOT contain “tails”. Sans-serif fonts are commonly used for display text (anything over 16pts in size) and headlines in print work.
Because the letters are “clean” they have become more and more popular in the current minimalistic society we live in. Most designers still shy away from using a sans-serif font for large blocks of printed text, though it is
almost always used in Web design.
With screen resolution at only 72 dpi, Web page text is already harder to read than a printed page. Never would you want to us a serif font at such low resolution as the added tails will cause the letters to blur and make reading difficult.
