![]() ![]() The beauty of typography is in the choice – but be sure to make that choice and to stick to it. Or, for that matter, slab-serif, blackletter, script, or any other type of font. My personal preference is for sans-serif faces such as the Swiss font Helvetica or classic London Underground-inspired Gill Sans, but I wouldn’t want to live without serif fonts. Serif fonts are considered to be elegant, subdued, serious, and readable, and they are therefore commonly used to set large blocks of text – have a look at a novel or newspaper.Ī sans-serif (or, less commonly, grotesque) font does not feature these details, and their modernist dynamic look sees them used largely for larger text items such as headlines or poster text (and relentlessly trendy art books). According to the Wikipedia, in Roman times, “Artisans would carve out a bit of extra space at the end of the long strokes of letters in order to prevent gravel and dust from collecting in the corners of the letters.” Serifs are small features at the end of strokes of letters, actually representing chisel marks. Though there are many subcategories, the basic division in fonts is that of serif and sans-serif faces. Try using the Mac’s New York typeface in print, and you’ll know exactly what I mean! Many fonts have been designed specifically for publication use, so for serious design work it pays to do some research into type. Which typeface or typefaces to use is the most basic and most fundamental aspect of this. In newspapers, the page is dominated by text, so it especially important to get this aspect correct. ![]() In magazines and brochures, the dominant features are images and white space. When it’s time to use your text, take a break first and look at other publications and printed products. Typography is the art of choosing and arranging the styles of the type in order to create a readable and attractive display. Typesetting is, obviously enough, the act of setting type – getting it onto the page and doing it properly. Yes, there is type layout, but there’s also more to that than one may think at first.Ī crucial distinction is between typesetting and typography. Read that again – there is a lot more to text than just typing. There Is a Lot More to Text than Just Typing Clearly word processing is something that Low End Mac readers are interested in, but what about what happens with the text afterwards? This week, The Low End Designer looks a basic typography. Last week’s Low End Designer article was the most popular piece in the series so far. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |