Beginner's Corner

We’ve already discussed when we started this series on typography that typography may very well be one of the most important elements in any design. How do you know if your typography is strong enough? It should answer the following criteria:

• Lends to the design, not taking away from it.
• Easy to read and comprehend.
• Makes an impact and draws attention as needed.

You may be thinking, that SOUNDS easy but it can’t possibly be. How do you actually accomplish ALL those things in a single design?

Typography is funny that way. To ensure that it’s ADDING to your design, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does it really EXPRESS what I want it to say?
• Can it be read easily from a distance?
• If I’ve used “Fancy” fonts, am I sure they are at least 16pt? Large enough to read?

Now that we’ve determined what your text should accomplish, let’s take a step back and discuss some other types of fonts. We’ve briefly mentioned that any “fancy” fonts would need to be large enough to read, so what does that entail? What are these “fancy” fonts I’m referring to?

To me, “fancy” fonts refer to anything that is not either simply Serif or Sans Serif.

DaFont.com, one of my favorite sites for typography inspiration, has several categories of these type faces, ranging from Grunge, Comic Book to Scripts and Calligraphy. Let’s look at a few of these (the fonts I’m showcasing here are avialable on Dafont.com!)

Western Fonts

One important thing to note when you’re looking at free fonts, watch the licensing laws they were released under. You will find that information on DaFont on the right side of the screen. Some are only free for personal use, others are simply free.

Script Fonts

We’re gonna end here for today in an effort to avoid overloading you with information. We will pick up this topic and continue!

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Recently a design student was perplexed when I requested that she "spice" up her typography. She let me know that one of her instructors did not allow her to add anything to the typography.

She had learned that typography effects were the first sign of an amateur. While I can definitely confirm that I’ve seen some typography tricks that were so poorly applied or so hideous that they were indeed the marks of an amateur designer.

However, in an effort to avoid throwing the baby out with the wash, I think it’s important that young designers are taught the ins and outs of typography effects without the bias of "simplistic style" so that they can appease the client with the greatest amount of design prowess available.

The next few posts we’ll be looking at keys to creating this stunning typography and carefully exploring the effects and techniques available.

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Recently in an article by Stephen Coles in HOW Magazine, the solution was delivered. Coles shared typefaces that could replace and revitalize "common fonts".

I’m gonna take it a step further and provide you links to these fresh fonts so you can download them yourselves and use them the next time you are tempted to reach into your designer’s kit for an overused font family.

 Coles said that typefaces are the "clothes that words wear".  I love that analogy. The truth of the matter is that no matter what words you have on the page, the way you "clothe" them can make or break the design.

Enough ado, lets look at these Font alternatives:

Alternatives for Futura:

>Super Grotesk

>Proxima Nova

Alternatives for Franklin, News and Trade Gothics:

>Spiegel

>Benton Sans

>Bulldog

Alternatives for Gill Sans:

>FF Milo

>Agenda

Alternatives for Times New Roman:

>Le Monde

>Arnhem

As designers there are 2 fonts requests that strike fear in our hearts. The first, "I found this font, Papyrus, can you use that in my logo?" The second, "I want it to look like this: . . . " And then the client holds out their flyer with a LARGE Comic Sans headline. How do we salve our creative consciences and simultaneously please the client!

Alternatives for Papyrus:

>Mariposa Sans

>Oxida

>Palatino Sans Informal

>Florentine Set

> ITC Cancione

Alternatives for Comic Sans:

>MVB Grenadine

>Tafelkreide

>Digital Delivery

>MVB Calliope

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Rule 1: The Family Comes First. For continuity in a design, attempt to rely on a single font family. To avoid being backed into a corner, choose a family that has a variety of weights and faces.

Rule 2: Use Diversity. While working within the family is the first place to start with any design, adding a distinctive typeface can create additional visual hierarchy and interest. Be cautious however, when adding additional fonts limit the selection. Very rarely would you ever want any Remember that Counterpoint and Contrast are stronger than harmony. The least risky, out of family contrast is combining a serif and sans serif font.
 

Rule 3: Combine similiar proportions. The reason you can’t easily mix Helvetica and Times together is the difference in letter proportions. These fonts combined look awkward, not coherent. On the other side, a combination of Arial and Times would work well, because the letter proportions are similar. Be aware of the x-height of the letter’s you are combining.

Can you tell which one is Arial/Times or Helvetica/Times?

The top sample is the correctly proportioned combination of Arial and Times, the bottom example is the unproprtionate combination of Helvetica and Times.
 

Rule 4: Limit combinations. Don’t use a font if you don’t have too. There is a fine line between diversity and font clutter.  Each typeface should provide a definite and specific purpose within the piece you are designing, if it doesn’t it’s chaos that’s not necessary and should be replaced with a previously used font.

While I firmly believe every rule is made to be broken, I also believe you must have a firm grasp of the rules before you can break them!  Enjoy your type design!

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Top 10 Font Resources:

1. DaFont Great categories and searches.
2. Urban Fonts Select from free and for purchase fonts.
3. 1001 Fonts Excellent selections of categories and styles.
4. Font Diner  Great retro fonts!
5. Veer.com Excellent original typefaces.
6. 1001FreeFonts Free. What more do you want?
7. I Love Typography Blog resource with great information on type and fonts.
8. Typography.com Original and breathtaking fonts.
9. Abstract Fonts Cool collections uploaded by users.
10. My Fonts News and font updates.

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By adding kerning to display text you can create a lighter, modern feel to your design. Similarly, by tightening the kerning you can create a denser feel to the layout, making it heavy and bulky on the page.

Adjusting the tracking can alleviate bad breaks in the copy caused by justified text. Slightly adjusting the tracking in a line is not noticeable, however for a light and airy effect try adding a little extra trackingto a paragraph for an easy-reading experience.

Last but not least, leading (pronounced ledding) is the space between the lines. As with everything else, the more space you have between lines the easier it is for the reader to separate the lines of text as they read. A good rule of thumb is to have at least a 4 pt increase in size (i.e. 12 pt font, 16 pt leading). Obviously, this guideline is based on a perfect world. Often you have to adjust your text to fit within the space determined by the size of the piece you’re working on. Just remember, using a little more space and making the piece readable will benefit everyone in the long run.

These terms, ideas and suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg that is Typography. Pay close attention to the text around you and you too will start to notice typography in action!

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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.

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