The Principles of Type

Emotion | Structure | Application

1. Emotion

Typography never occurs in isolation. Good typography demands not only a knowledge of type itself, but an understanding of the relationship between letterforms and the other things that humans make and do. Typographic history is just that: the study of the relationships between type designs and the rest of human activity - politics, philosophy, the arts and the history of ideas.

a. Typography exists to honor content

Like oratory, music, dance, calligraphy - like anything that lends its grace to language - typography is an art that can be deliberately misused. It is a craft by which the meanings of a text (or its absence of meaning) can be clarified, honored and shared, or knowingly disguised.

Statuesque transparency:

typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn.

Durability:

not immunity to change but a clear superiority to fashion. Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.

Legibility:

distinctness that makes perception easy. Writing (print or handwriting) that can be easily read

Emotion:

Type that communicates the emotion of the content which gives living energy to the page.

These principles apply, in different ways, to the typography of business cards, instruction sheets and postage stamps, as well as to editions of religious scriptures, literary classics and other books that aspire to join their ranks. Within limits, the same principles apply even to stock market reports, airline schedules, milk cartons, classified ads. But emotion, like legibility itself, all feed on meaning, which the writer, the words and the subject, not the typographer, must generally provide.

b. Letters have a life and dignity of their own.

Letterforms that honor and elucidate what humans see and say deserve to be honored in their turn. Well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters; these in turn deserve to be set with affection, intelligence, knowledge and skill. typography is a link, and it out as a matter of honor, courtesy and pure delight, to be as strong as the others in the chain. The typographers task has always been to add a protective shell of artificial order, to the power of the writing hand.

c. There is a style beyond style.

Literary style, says Walter Benjamin, “is power to move freely in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without slipping into banality.” Typographic style, in this large and intelligent sense of the word, does not mean any particular style - my style or your style, or Neoclassical or Baroque style - but the power to move freely through the whole domain of typography, and to function at every step in a way that is graceful and vital instead of banal. It means typography that can walk familiar ground without sliding into platitudes, typography that responds to new conditions with innovative solutions, and typography that does not vex the reader with its own originiality in a self-conscious search for praise.

d. Read the text before designing it.

Each distinct piece requires its own distinct typographic identity and form. Every layer and level of the text must be consistent, distinct, yet (usually) harmonious in form.

The first task of the typographer is therefore to read and understand the text; the second task is to analyze and map it. Only then can typographic interpretation begin.

If the text has many layers or sections, it may need not only head and subheads but running heads as well, reappearing on every page or two-page spread, to remind readers which intellectual neighborhood they happen to be visiting. The typographer must analyze and reveal the inner order of the text, as a musician must reveal the inner order of the music he performs.

e. Make the visible relationship between the text and other elements (photographs, captions, tables, diagrams, notes) a reflection of their real relationship.

If the text is tied to other elements, where do they belong? If there are notes, do they go at the side of the page, the foot of the page, the end of the chapter, the end of the book? If there are photographs or other iullustrations, should they be embedded in the text or should they form a special swection of their own? And if the photographs have captions or credits or labels, should these site close beside the photographs or should they be seperately housed?

f. Shape the page and frame the text block so that it honors and reveals every element, every relationship between elements, and every logical nuance of the text.

g. Give full typographic attention especially to incidental details.

“God is in the details”

Some of what a typographer must set is simply passage work. There is a certain amount of routine text: page numbers, scene numbers, textual notes, the copyright claim, the publisher's name and address, and the hyperbole on the jacket, not to mention the passage work or background writing that is implicit in the text istels. However, the typographer can make poignant and lovely typography from bibliographical paraphernalia and textual chaff, The ability to do so rests on respect for the text as a whole, and on respect for the letters themselves.

Summary -

There are always exceptions, always excuses for stunts and surprises. But perhaps we can agree that, as a rule, typography should perform these services for the reader:

1. invite the reader into the text;

2. reveal the tenor and meaning of the text;

3. clarify the structure and the order of the text;

4. link the text with other existing elements;

5. induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading.

2. Structure

Although printing was introduced in the fifteenth century, it was not until two hundred years later that a uniform method of type measurement was devised. Firmin Didot worked out a point system, which formed the basis for type measurement.

The point system in use today in America prescribes 12 points per pica and approximately 6 picas to the inch. Type sizes are designated by points, and measurements of type areas are normally designated in picas.

Because type size is based on the body of the type rather than the face, point size can be a misleading measurement.

For example, the letter O in 10-pt Times Roman is large enough to encompass the O in 10 pt Mrs. Eaves. This difference is caused by variations in the length of the ascenders and descenders in the different typefaces. Type is often described as having a large or small x-height, which is the size of the lowercase x in relation to the overall size of the typeface.

Terms:

San Serif - A category of typefaces that do not use serifs. Popular sans serif fonts include Helvetica, Avant Garde, Arial, and Futura.

Serif - A small decorative line added as embellishment to the basic form of a character. Typefaces are often described as being serif or sans serif (without serifs). The most common serif typeface. Serif fonts include Times New Roman, Courier, Garamond and Palatino.

Ascender - In typography, the portion of a lowercase letter that rises above the main body of the letter (that is, above the height of a lowercase x). For example, the letter t's ascender is the part of the vertical line above the horizontal line.

Descender - In typography, the portion of a lowercase letter that falls below the baseline. In the English alphabet, 5 letters have descenders: g, j, p, q, and y.

x height -The distance between the baseline and the midline of an alphabet, which is the approximate height of the unextended lowercase letters -a, c, e, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z - and of the torso of b, d, h, k, p, q, y. The relation of x-hight to cap height, and the relation of x-height to length of extenders, are two important characteristics of any bicameral Latin typeface.

Point Size - In traditional British and American measure, a point is one twelfth of a pica, which makes it 0.3515 mm, or 0.01383 inch. In round numbers, there are 72 points per inch, or 28.5 points per centimeter. Many photosetters and most digital typesetting devices, as well as the PostScript and True Type computer languages, round the point off to precisely 1/72 inch and the pica to precisely 1/6 inch.

Baseline - The Latin lowercase alphabet implies an invisible staff consisting of at least four lines: topline, midline, baseline and beardline. The topline is the line reached by the ascenders. The midline marks the top of letters like a, c, e, m, x, and the top of the torso of letters like b, d, h. The beardline is the line reached by descenders in letters like p and q. The cap line, marking the top of uppercase letters like H, does not necessarily coincide with the topline of the lower case.

Round letters like e and o normally dent the baseline. Pointed letters like v and w normally pierce it, while the foot serifs of letters like h and m rest precisely on it.

em - em is a distance equal to the type size. In 6 point type, an em is 6 points; in 12 pt type it is 12 points, and in 60 point type it is 60 points. This one-em space is proportionately the same in any size.

en - The en is half as much as an em

3. Application

The density of texture in a written or typeset page is called its “color”. This has nothing to do with red or green ink; it refers only to the darkness or blackness of the letterforms in mass. Once the demands of legibility and logical order are satisfied, eveness of color is the typographer's normal aim. And color depends on fours things:

a. the design of the type

b. the spacing between the letters (kerning)

c. the spacing between the words (tracking)

d. the spacing between the lines (leading)

Horizontal Motion -

a. Define the word space to suit the size and natural letterfit of the font.

Type is normally measured in picas and points, but horizontal spacing is measured in ems, and the em is a sliding measure. One em is a distance equal to the type size. In 6 point type, an em is 6 points; in 12 pt type it is 12 points, and in 60 point type it is 60 points. This a one-em space is proportionately the same in any size.

b. Choose a comfortable measure

Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length for a single-column page set in a serified text face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal. For multiple column work, a better average is 40 to 50 characters.

On a conventional book page, the measure, or length of line, is usually around 30 times the size of the type, but lines as little as 20 or as much as 40 times the type size dall within the expectable range. If, for example, the type size is 10 pt, the measure might be around 30 x 10 = 300 pt.

c. Set ragged if ragged setting suits the text and the page.

In justified text, there is always a trade-off between eveness of word spacing and frequency of hyphenation. The best available compromise will depend on the nature of the text as well as on the specifics of the design. Good compositors like to avoid consecutive hyphenated line-ends, but frequent hyphens are better than sloppy spacing, and ragged setting is better yet.

Many san serif faces look best when set ragged no matter what the length of the measure.

d. Use a single word space between sentences.

e. Add little or no space within strings of initials.

W.B. Yeats

J.C.L. Prillwitz

Acronyms such as CIA and PLO are frequent in some texts. The normal value for letter spacing these sequences of small or full caps s 5% to 10% of the type size.

f. Don't letterspace the lower case without a reason.

A man who would letter space lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. The reason for not letter spacing lower case is that it hampers legibility. But there are some lowercase alphabets to which this rule doesn't apply. Normally bold condensed san serif typefaces are the exception.

Because it isolates the individual elements, letter spacing has a role to play wherever words have ceased to matter and letters are what count. Where letters function one by one, like numbers - as in acronyms, website and email addresses – letter spacing is like to help, no matter whether the letters are caps, small caps or lower case.

g. Kern consistently and modestly or not at all.

Kerning - altering the space between selected pairs of letters - can increase consistency of spacing in a word like Washington or Toronto, where the combinations of WA and TO are kerned.

(computerized typesetting systems that modify predefined letter combinations)

Numbers are often omitted from kerning tables, but numbers frequently need kerning more than anything else.

h. Don't stretch the space until it breaks.

Lists, such as contents pages and recipes, are opportunities to build architectural structures in which the space between the elements both seperates and binds.

Vertical Motion -

a. Choose a basic leading that suits the typeface, text and measure.

Space in typography is like time in music. It is infinitely divisible, but a few proportional intervals can be much more useful than a limitless choice of arbitrary quantities.

The metering of horizontal space is accomplished almost unconsciously. You choose and prepare a font, and you choose a measure (the width of the column), When you set the type, the measure fills with the varied rhythm of repeating letter shapes, which are music to the eye.

Vertical space is metered in a different way. You must choose not only the overall measure - depth of the column or page - but also a basic rhythmical unit. This unit is the leading, which is the distance from one baseline to the next.

Eleven-point type set solid is described as 11/11. The theoretical face of the type is 11 points high (from the top of the d to the bottom of the p, if the type is full on the body), and the distance from the baseline of line one to the baseline of line two is also 11 points. Add two points of lead (interlinear space), and the type is set 11/13. The type size has not changes, but the distance from baseline to baseline has increased to 13 points, and the type has more room to breathe.

This is an example of 10/12 x 21. This means the type size is 10 pt, the added lead is 2 pt, giving a total leading of 12 pt, and the line length is 21 picas.

A short burst of advertising copy or a title might be set with negative leading (18/15, for example), so long as the ascenders and descenders don't collide.

Continuous text is very rarely set with negative leading, and only a few text faces read well when set solid. Most text requires positive leading. Setting such as 9/11, 10/12, 11/13 and 12/15 are routine. Longer measures need more leading than shorter ones. Dark faces need more leading than lighter ones. Large-bodies faces need more leading than smaller and san serif faces often need more leading (or a shorter line) than their serifed counter parts.

Extra leading is also generally welcome where the text is thickened by superscripts, subscripts, methematical expressions, or the frequent use of full capitals.

b. Add and delete vertical space in measured intervals.

Leading must not change arbitrarily in type.

c. Set opening paragraphs flush left

The function of a paragraph indent is to mark a pause, setting the paragraph apart from what precedes it. If a paragraph is preceded by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and can therefore be omitted.

d. In continuous text, mark all paragraphs after the first with an indent of at least one en.

How much indent is enough? The most common paragraph indent is one em. Another standard value is one lead. If your text is set 11/13, the indent would then be either 11 pt (one em) or 13 pt (one lead). One en (half an em) is the practical minimum.

e. Add extra lead before and after block quotations.

f. Indent or center verse quotations.

Etiquette of Hyphenation and Pagination

a. At hyphenated line-ends, leave at least two characters behind and take at least three forward.

Fi-nally is conventionally acceptable line-end hyphenation, but final-ly is not, because it takes too little of the word ahead of the next line.

b. Avoid leaving the stub-end of a hyphenated word, or any word shorter than four letters, as the last line of a paragraph.

c. Avoid more than three consecutive hyphenated lines.

d. Hyphenate according to the conventions of the language.

e. Avoid beginning more than two consecutive lines with the same word.

f. Never begin a page with the last line of a multi-line paragraph.

Isolated lines created when pararaphs begin on the last line of a page are known as orphans. The stub-ends left when paragraphs end ion the first line of a page are called widows.

g. The last line on a page must never end in a hyphen.