DESIGN PRACTICE: January 2012

Make up of type:

- Components
- Weight and sizes
- Styles

- Roman and italic are the most frequently used styles.

- Light

- Regular

- Semibold
- Bold
- Extra bold

Leading:

Leading is the spacing between two lines of text, the example below displays this. Leading can be explored and altered by designers to achieve a typographic design for block text that is much more visually pleasing. On the other hand if leading is reduced or extended too much this can cause problems with readability i have tried to show this again below. In my opinion 2pt leading is the most readable.

Words ÷ Words in line = Lines per page

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Two typefaces could be the same point size but there are still some noticeable differences with certain characters for example X height. I have attempted to show this by the diagram shown below.

As you can see the two characters have completely different heights but both characters where both regular weight and at 60pt.

Ligatures:

These where created in the days of traditional letterpress printing, The reason for these begin created is that there where certain characters that when placed next to each other looked out of place and would need alteration with kerning, as this caused problems for readability.

Ligatures began to die out as soon as the digital age came about, there is no need for this as now kerning, leading, tracking can all be adjusted digitally, It is even now possible to use - leading this is where there is minus space between the lines of text allowing the text to overlap, this would obviously never been possible in the early stages of print.

Using Type:

Readability - The most readable line length is around 9 - 10 lines long, you must also make sure that tracking is kept to a readable level especially when adjusting this within block text. Leading is another key feature that you must be careful with this can cause serious problems with readability if the leading is to large or too little.

Hierarchy:

What you want the viewer to read first, an example of this would be the list i have shown below this states the hierarchy of a standard editorial design, this is however not a fixed rule - this is just a hierarchy that would be easily readable and easy for the viewer to navigate the page.

- Heading

- Sub Heading

- Running Header

- Intro

- Body captions

- Folios

Drop Caps:

As you can see displayed below is an example of a drop cap, this is a great method of creating an editorial with a strong hierarchy as this gives the viewer a starting point from where to read, giving the viewer a sense on direction when they initially see the design.

Typefaces can be used to describe something - An example of this would be personality or style even gender. I have show examples of this below:

Emotion and Meaning

Transport Medium:

With the progression in transport meant that for health and safety purposes Typographic designs where needed for new road signage - the new high speeds of the developing transport meant that a highly readable typeface was required - one that could be read quickly and at high speed.

Transport Medium:

DIN:

Kerning: In addition to general kerning this can be applied between, specific areas the numerals in the majority of typefaces all occupy the same character width to enable the tabular setting of figures.

Tracking:

A heavy font can be opened out to increase readability:

Grid System:

Muller Bockmann:

He was a swiss graphic designer and the creator of the typographic grid, this is a two-dimensional structure made up of a series of intersecting vertical and horizontal axes used to structure content. The grid serves as an armature on which a designer can organize text and images in a rational, easy to absorb manner.

Session:

Kerning is the spacing between individual letters.
Tracking - The spacing of a whole line.
Type is made up of; Weight, Size & Style.
The term Leading is the spacing between lines.
Method of measuring

Measuring the Ascender to the Descender is how to find the point size
Measure baseline to baseline and then subtract PT size.
Must remember that the ascenders are in most cases slightly higher than capital letters.
PICA is the measurement of sentence length.
The same grid should be used through out the whole editorial
The use of more columns give more opportunity to edit the layout design.

Measuring point size and Leading:

Counting the number columns within a grid system:

Newspaper:

Magazine Grid dissection:

Design Direction Sheet:

We then went onto create design direction boards this was basically a collection of/ imagery, design, format, typeface and colour scheme that i have found inspirational and that i will generate ideas from to get a feel of what i am going to create.

leaflet design direction board:

magazine design direction board:

screen print: design direction board:

Info graph design direction board:

Typeposter design direction board:

Information is beautiful:

I have again looked in depth at the visualisation of data: Taking inspiration from the way it is displayed for example layout, icons, and the main one the visualisation of a map.

I have noticed that in a lot of the designs arrows are a brilliant way of directing the reader, this in my opinion strengthens the hierarchy of the design maximising reading ease.