the composition of text by means of arranging physical types or the digital equivalent. Stored letters and symbols are retrieved ordered according to a languages orthography.
The Line:
the reading process, your eyes jerkily go along the line, these movements are known as saccades
Typography: 3 elements
– the letter, design of the individual character
– the word, how these glyphs fit together
– the line, combination and arrangement of words in a body of sequences.
Typesetting Principles:
Hierarchy
Some messages may be more important than others, type size, style , weight and colour treatment can eadd emphasises to any element that require prominence.
Alignment:
Left Aligned is a default as this is how we read
Justified creates a flush along the edgy, no flush
Centred and right aligned, can be used but not common as often inhibit readability.
The rag:
right side of a body of text tends to go in out, in out. Creates an even rag down the body of text
Paragraphs:
– Indentation
– Full line break
a consistant paragraph style will help cement the look and feel of your typography. Type alignment and breaks both effect the overall look of your body of text.
Letter Spacing:
Vertical letter spacing- Leading, distance between the baseline of successive lines of type. Bad leading can make a body of text looked cramped inhibiting legibility.
Tracking:
Referes to the amount of space between a group of letters to effect density in a line to block of text. Wide tracking opens up the type, giving it more airy white space.
As a rule don't go below -40 or above 40
Kerning and pairs:
Process of adjusting the space between individual letters in a proportional font to achieve a visually pleasing result.
Hidden Characters
Invisible characters which show how type is from, indicating structure of the text and how the type is set. Useful for finding double spaces and unintentional line breaks.
Line Length:
Efficient reading depends on the length of a line which is usually between 7-12 words per line. AN overly short line length causes a more extreme and ugly rag in a body of text. overly long line lengths decrease legibility as the eye finds it harder to find the next line
Widows and Orphans:
Lines or words left hanging or separated from a complete body of text. This includes single words eft at the end of a paragraph, line that appear alone at the top of the next column. Use tracking and line spacing to remove any windows and orphans.
Dashes and Spaces:
Hyphens function as the formation of certain compound terms.
En-dash, (alt hyphen) used for range e.g; from London – Glasgow. Additional spacing shows that both London and Glasgow are separate.
Em-dash — (shift,alt hyphen), use to show interruptions in speech, or breaks in speech such as pauses. Gives human aspect to typography
Grids:
Raster system, Josef Muller Brockmann
Grids are considered by soem, the most important and yet invisible part of design. This is a fundamental part of classic swiss design and modernist typography. The Raster system presents a grid in 8-32 grid field, which can be adaptable according to design.
Rivers:
gaps in typesetting which run through a paragraph of text due to coincidental alignment of spaces. Rivers are most noticeable with wide inter-word spaces caused by justification or monospaced fonts.
Baseline grid:
technique used in modernist typesetting, it aligns your text to a vertical grid where the bottom of each letter is positioned on the grid just like writing on lined paper. must always sit along the baseline grid
Hyphenate or not:
– sometimes necessary in large bodies of text
– mandatory in justified text
– in left alignment hyphenation evens the irregular right rag.
– optional in left aligned text because the rag will be somewhat irregular
– shorter line length hyphenation is often needed
Study Task:
Experiment with typesetting in relation to the first page of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Use different typesetting techniques to experiment with different ways to present and read the body of text. The following are my interpretations:
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