7. Making typography legible

Reading is a complex process whereby we identify and transform a written message into meaning so that we can respond to it. How do we evaluate how easy a piece of typography is to read? Investigations by psychologists into reading can identify the factors that make type legible under different circumstances, and suggest the best solutions to facilitate reading. Designers and psychologists working together can focus on user needs and, through iterative design, develop the most appropriate solutions. ‘Making typography legible’ explains the guidelines for legibility. There are several variables that affect legibility: the relationship of line length to line spacing, the arrangement of type, and the choice of typeface.

6. Emotion or information?

We are surrounded by a typographic environment. Typography is present not just in the printed matter that we read, but also in all our interactions with computers and mobile devices, with street signs and shop fronts. Typography has multiple personalities. As well as identifying and imparting information, typography is associative, and designers use it to influence our view of the messages we are reading. In this way, typography can be considered a creative endeavour. Typography is also the mechanized presentation of language. In this way, it is subservient to the structures of the messages it presents. ‘Emotion or information?’ considers how these different aspects of typography can be reconciled.

8. Positive typography

What should we keep in mind while designing, and what are the benefits of designing in a multimedia, global era? ‘Positive typography’ explains that the designer needs to listen to, and act for, the reader. It is also essential to recognize that design is always a team activity and it is important that there is communication of design priorities within a team. Typography’s function of organizing our world of incessant information through visual form is as important as it ever was, and fortunately it is much more widely taught, understood, and appreciated now that the tools of typographic production and reproduction are in so many hands.

4. Genre and layout

Layout is the arrangement of material on a page or screen that articulates the text we are reading. The earliest forms of the book provided a linear visual presentation, with little if any spacing between words and paragraphs, which was close to the continuous linear quality of speech. ‘Genre and layout’ explains that the use of different sizes of different scripts, different coloured initials, and different columnar arrangements became essential to the articulation of increasingly complex documents. It describes different typographic genres and analyses layout. The details of layout and typography have a considerable effect on the way the whole of a publication is perceived.

5. Picture language

For centuries, images were regarded as inferior to language and seen as an embellishment or decoration, despite their undoubted power to transmit information. This held back the development of graphical presentations of data, because numbers in tables were seen as more trustworthy. The presentation of statistics in charts only began at the end of the eighteenth century. ‘Picture language’ concentrates on a component shared by data visualization and wider graphic communication—the symbol—a graphic object used to represent a concept, action, instruction, or object. It considers how we recognize symbols and how they are used: in symbol sets and to present data.

1. Perfect letters

Typography is design for reading; a set of visual choices designed to make a written message more accessible, more easily transmitted, more significant, or more attractive. Some letters are more legible, some are designed for particular technologies, and some strike us as having intrinsic emotional associations. What determines the shapes of the letters we use? ‘Perfect letters’ explains how our capital alphabet comes from the letters the Romans cut in stone, and our small letters come from the handwriting of Renaissance scribes. It also discusses the invention of printing in the 1440s, the ‘new typography’ movement of the 1920s that promoted sans serif typefaces, and more recent ideas about letter construction.

3. Presenting language

‘Presenting language’ considers the visual presentation of language. Using the schema developed by Michael Twyman, it shows how graphic language can be presented by considering the method of configuration and the mode of symbolization. The categories in the schema allow us to understand how information can be presented in different ways to enable different reading strategies and outcomes. Directed and open reading is discussed along with hierarchy in text, and how text and documents can be described systematically. Markup languages are used to identify text structure so that texts can be manipulated digitally in different ways depending on the medium used. Prescription and house style are also explained.

2. Practical letters

Written communication cannot rely on only one style of letter to function. A single alphabet might suffice if we were looking at Roman inscriptions, but in any kind of modern publication, we see a variety of letterforms coexist. The great strength of the Latin alphabet is its ability to be modulated typographically—the basic design can be varied by slope, weight, compression, and even by the addition of decoration. ‘Practical letters’ considers typographic terminology, the development of typefaces, the numerical systems used to describe the relationships between letter sizes, complex text typography, the mechanization of type, and how letters sit side by side to make words and lines of type.