typographic rules 1-10

7/28/2019 Typographic Rules 1-10

1/11


2/11

typographic rules 1-10

Table of Contents

Ch. 5 IntroPg. 4-5 Rule No. 6Pg. 12

Rule No. 1Pg. 6 Rule No. 7Pg. 13

Rule No. 2Pg. 7 Rule No. 8Pg. 14-15

Rule No. 3Pg. 8-9 Rule No. 9Pg. 16

Rule No. 4Pg. 10 Rule No. 10Pg. 17

Rule No. 5Pg. 11 Designers BioPg. 18


3/11

Over the centuries, typographic guidelineshave been developed to provide consistencyand competency within t he proession, to preservethe beauty and legibility o t ypographic orm,and to ensure that typographic unctions as otenmandated: to clearly represent the thoughts o theauthor.

Te guidelines presented in this chapter are notabsolute or denitive, but they are representativeso a sturdy time-tested collection o typographicrules. Tey are presented here to provide acontext or inormed typographic exploration. Inother words, rules must rst be understood beorethey can be broken. Once it is known how toobey rules, one can reely venture into unconven-tional terrain. For some readers, these pages oera welcome review. For those new to the asci-nating but conusing world o typography, theyprovide a critical oundation or inormed andresponsible practice.

Obeying The Rules

Te division pages located at the beginning o econstitute both typographical experiments and rule applications. Eric Brandt comments: Lettethe architectural elements o our being-toward-rsuch they can be treated as syntactic and semanTese pages are simple attempts to isolate and exTey are intended as quiet moments to considerexperimentation is actually necessary? I urge thachieves both maximum clarity and maximum e

Credit and disclaimer or source material:

All body text and images are provided rom a variety o sources, bothprinted and on line. ext and images are used solely or educational designconcept purposes and are not intended or publication or distribution.


4/11

No.1 No.

Right

Wrong

Type Example

Right

Wrong

Type Exam

Right

Wrong

Right

Wrong

The role of typographic experimentation is toextend the boundaries of language by freely probing vi-sual and verbal syntax and the relationships be-tween word and image. Syntactic explorationenables designers to discover among typographic media

Rule ApplicationsTe role o typographic experimentation is to extend theboundaries o language by reely probing visual and verbal syn-tax and the relationships between word and image. Syntacticexploration enables designers to discover among typographicmedia an enormous potential to ediy, entertain, and surprise.

For optimum legibility,choose classical, time-tested typefaces with aproven track record.

Well-seasoned typographic designers can usually count their favoritepefaces in one hand. Most often, they are drawn and crafted withonsistency among characters, and those that exhibit highly legibleroportions.

ypographicule

Legibility is primarily the concern o the type-

ace designer, to ensure that each individualcharacter or glyph is unambiguous and distin-guishable rom all other characters in the ont.It is also in part the concern o the typographerto select a typeace with appropriate clarity odesign or the intended use at the intended size.I you want the most legible and readable, triedand true typeaces or text, choose classic serionts. Some examples are: Baskerville, Bodoni,Garamond, and Sabon. Many o these classiconts have been around or centuries and areversatile and reliable standards; designed withconsistency among characters and are propor-tioned well or readability. Benjamin Franklinchose the ont Caslon or the frst printing othe American Declar ation o Independence.Fonts based on the typeaces o William Caslonare good, readable choices or text. W

Te crisp, clean, uncluttered lines o cla ssicsans seri onts are perennial avorites that de-signers turn to again and again. Some examplesare: Futura, Helvetica, Gill Sans, Frutiger andUniverse. Within each grouping are manyvarieties and renditions, some more suitablethan others or body copy. Te introduction

o Helvetica Neue brought some order to the

chaos with more design consistency among the

various weights that had developed through-out the 60s and 70s. Helvetica works well ormany applications rom body text to billboards.Frankin Gothic is a popular choice or newspa-per work, the various weights give this sans seriont great versatility and the condensed versionsmaintain high legibility in tight spaces.

So what makes a ty peace legible? A long-standing typographic maxim is that the mostlegible typeaces are transparent to the read-erthat is, they dont call undue attention tothemselves. Additionally, the most legible type-aces contain big eatures and have restraineddesign characteristics. While this may seem likea typographic oxymoron, its not. Big eaturesreers to things such as la rge, open counters,ample lowercase x-heights, and character shapesthat are obvious and easy to recognize. Temost legible typeaces are also restrained. Teyare not excessively light or bold, weight changeswithin ch aracter strokes are subt le, and seris ,i the ace has them, do not callattention to themselves.

The primary purpose for using more than one typeface is to create emphasis or to separateone part of the text f rom another. When too many typefaces are used, the page becomes athree ring circus, and the reader is unable to determine what is and not important.

Te ability to successully combine typeaces

is clearly a valuable design skill. But with over100,000 onts to choose rom, the task canseem daunting. Te good news is that there a reour basic rules or combining dierent type-ace designs. Follow these and you are well onyour way to successul typographic mixology.Te saest and easiest way to take advantage omultiple typeace designs is to rely on a single,large type amily or your choices. Te variousweights and proportions within the amily pro-vide a range o versatility. Since all the designsare rom the same amily, you are also guar-anteed that there will be no stylistic clashes.Even the simplest type amily o roman, ital icand bold can provide reasonable type mixingcapabilities.

For most projects, however, a large amily oseveral weightseach with italic counter-partswill provide more exibility. Larger typeamilies provide more latitude o choice. So ione weight is not quite right, youll probably beable to fnd one that is. Some type amilies alsohave condensed designs that can be put to gooduse in headlines and subheads or where spaceis at a premium. While working in-amily is

good, using very dierent typeace designs is

usually better. Combining distinctively dier-

ent typeace designs can cre ate a more obvioushierarchy and generate higher levels o visual in-terest. Te typographic Golden Rule or com-bining onts rom unrelated amilies is simple:the more dissimilar the type designs, the betterthe mix. Counterpoint is a stronger typographictool and easier to use th an harmony.

Te least risky out o amily contrast is com-bining a seri with a sans seri typeace. Selectvirtually any sans seri design, combine it withjust about any seri ont and youre just onestep over the line rom absolute conservatism.Combine Avenir with Bembo, Slate with Danteor Franklin Gothic with Cartier Book, andyou almost cant go wrong. One thing to keepin mind: A little diversity helps here also. Seriand sans seri typeaces that have similar designroots like Goudy Sans and iepolo, which areboth based on calligraphic orms, can be com-bined, but the result may not be as successul astwo designs with strong visual contrasts.

TypographicRule

Be mindful not to use toomany different typefacesat any one time.

Obeying The Rules Obeying The Rules

This is legible.

This not as

much.

Good amou

THIS IS TOO M

The role of Typographic experimenTa-

Tion is To exTend The boundaries of lan-

guage by freely probing visual and ver-

bal synTax and The relaTionships beTween

word and image. synTacTic exploraTion



5/11

As a general rule o thumb, theres a very little

need in using more than two t ypeaces or typeamilies in a design. However, this rule can bebroken depending on the project. First o all, whatis the point o using dierent typeaces in design?Te obvious answer is to dierentiate certainelements o design. A typical page can consist omore than one element such as plain body text,headlines, subheads, sidenotes, captions, numbers.I a design doesnt have much text then using morethan one typeace may look too garish. On theother hand, i a design has lots o content withvarious elements that need to be projected dier-ently, then more than two typeaces may be u sedto achieve the right eect.

With the variety o typeaces available, there arehundredsprobably thousandso potentiallygood combinations. Combining just sans seridesigns, however, becomes more challenging. Teproblem with combining two sans seri typeacesis that most are similar in designespecially to

average readers. Strong typographic contrasts typi-cally dont create problems, but when typeacesrom dierent amilies that are similar in design

are combined, design imbalance is oten the result.

Te casual reader may not even notice that thetypeaces are dierent, but wil l probably be awareo a subtle, discordant undertone within the design(think navy socks paired with black shoes).

Almost all publications will contain headlinesand body copy, or at least subordinate textualinormation. Commonly youll need or wa nt touse dierent typeaces or the va rious levels oinormation in the publication. Tere are severalpossible outcomes when you combine typeaces ina publicationthey may complement one another,contrast with one another, or conict with one an-other. Te frst two are usually good, but the lastone is usually bad. Avoid using two or more simi-lar typeaces on a page. Selecting onts that are notdierent enough can cause conict. For example,its usually a poor idea to use t wo script typeaceson a single page, or a script and an italic, or t wodierent slab seris, or two dierent old aces, etc..

If the reason for combining

typefaces is to create empha-sis, it is important to avoidambiguity caused by combin-ing types that are too similarin appearance. When thisoccurs, it usually looks like amistake, because not enoughcontrast exists between thetypefaces.

No.3ypographicule

Type Example

Right Wrong

This seems intentional.

Arial &Helvetica?!

Avoid combining typefacesthat are too similar in ap-pearance.

Obeying The Rules

Right

Wrong

The role of typographic experimentation is to extend the

boundaries oflanguage by freely probing visual and verba l syn-

tax and the relationships between word and image. Syntacticexploration enables designers to discover among typographicmedia an enormous potential to ediy, entertain, and surprise.

Rule ApplicationsThe role of typographic experimentation is to extend theboundaries o language by reely probing visual and verbal syn-tax and the relationships between word and image. Syntacticexploration enables designers to discover among typographicmedia an enormous potential to ediy, entertain, and surprise.


6/11


7/11

No.No.6

Right

Wrong

Type Example

Right

Wrong

Type Exam

Right

Wrong

Right

Wrong

The role of typographic experimentation is to extend the boundaries of lan-

guage by freely probing visual and verbal syntax and the relationships between

word and image. Syntactic exploration enables designers to discover among

typographic media an enormous potential to edify, entertain, and surprise.


ypographicule

2

TypographicRule


The role of typographic experimentation is toextend the boundaries of language by freely prob-

ing visual and verbalsyntax and the relation-ships between word and image. Syntactic exploration

enables designers to discover among typographic media an enor-

Rule ApplicationsTe role of typographic experimentation is to extend theboundaries o language by reely probing visual and verbal syn-tax and the relationships between word and image. Syntacticexploration enables designers to discover among typographicmedia an enormous potential to ediy, entertain, and surprise.

The weight of a typefaces is determined by the thickness of the letter strokes. Text typefacesthat are too light cannot easily be distinguished from their backgrounds. In typefaces thatare too heavy, counterforms diminish in size, making them less legible. Book weights strike ahappy medium, and are ideal for text.

Use text types of bookweight. Avoid typefac-es appearing too heavyor too light.

With multiple master typeaces, the concept

o a typeace amily is redened. A typicalcontemporary typeace amily contains onlythree or our dierent weights. Multiple mastertypeaces with a weight axis make it possible orusers to generate additional weight variations tosuit specic needs. I the designer thinks thatan existing typeace with a weight axis wouldbenet rom the addition o an optical sizeaxis, the appropriate point size range or thedesign must be determined. For example, therange may vary rom about 6 to 18 points i thedesign is intended solely or text use, 24 to 72points or display setting, or perhaps a completerange rom 6 to 72 points i the design is appro-priate or both text and display use. Ten thedesigner must create small and large size masterdesigns or both the light and bold weights.

Numerous weight classes exist, including thegeneral classes with which you may already beamiliar: regular, bold, and light. Regular is theaverage weight class, simple and unadorned.Bold is heavier and slightly wider than regulartypeace and is used to emphasize text. Lighttypeace is slender, and as its name implies,lighter than regular typeace. It also has a sub-

tler impact than regular or bold orms and can

help achieve a minimalistic look. Te weight

o a typeaces is determined by the thicknesso the letter strokes. ext typeaces that aretoo light cannot easily be distinguished romtheir backgrounds. In typeaces that are tooheavy, counterorms diminish in size, makingthem less legible. Book weights strike a happymedium, and are idea l or text.ype weightinuences the way aces appear.

Well designed typeaces already have visualqualities that make them readable. Dont distortthe type just because a design program givesyou the capability to. When type is articiallydistorted, again it has an amateurish eel.Weight is the amount o vertical thickness inthe characters o a ont. It is the ratio betweenthe height o the letter and the thickness o thestroke. As the stroke becomes thicker, the letterappears heavier. Weights go rom ultra light/thin to light to semi-light to book to normalto medium to semi-bold to bold to heavy toblack to ultra-black. Te weight determines therelationship between the black o the letterormand the light or white space th at surrounds it.

ou only need to use as many different sizes and weights as needed tostablish a clear hierarchy among parts of information. Josef Muller-rockmann advocates using no more than two sizes, one for displayles and one for text type. Restraint in the number of sizes used leadsfunctional and attractive pages.

Avoid using too manytype sizes and weightsat the same time.

Te weight o type reers to the thick ness o the

characters strokes. Many typeaces will come inat least three weights. Common ones are: Light,Book, Regular, Medium, Bold, Extra Bold.ype sizes are described in points. Tis goesback to the days when typesetting was done byprinters, and printing was done by letterpress(pressing a sheet o paper against metal typeto get an image on the sheet). Small blocks olead with raised characters were arranged intrays, and the size o the block (not the char-acter), measured with a pica ruler (12 pointsto one pica), described the size o that ont.Tats one reason why a 12 point typeace mayappear smaller or larger than another 12 pointtypeace.

Te weight o a particular ont is the thicknesso the character outlines relative to their height.Te base weight diers among typeaces; thatmeans one normal ont may appear bolder thansome other normal ont. For example ontsintended to be used in posters are oten quitebold by deault while onts or long runs o textare rather light. Tereore weight designationsin ont names may dier in regard to the actualabsolute stroke weight or density o glyphs in

the ont. Most typeaces contain bold and bold

italic typestyles which are much heavier in

stroke weight than the Roman. Many typeacesor ofce, Web and non-proessional use c omewith just a normal and a bold weight.

A typeace may come in onts o many weights,rom ultra-light to extra-bold or black; our tosix weights are not unusual, and a ew type-aces have as many as a dozen. Some typeacesinclude typestyles with character widths whichare narrower than roman, called condensed,and wider, called extended. Tese typestylesgenerally include accompanying weight varia-tions. Most typeaces contain bold and bolditalic typestyles which are much heavier instroke weight than the Roman. Many typeacesoer a broader range o weights in addition toRoman, including light and medium (or book)and in addition to bold, including semibold (ordemibold), extrabold (or heavy), and black.


8/11

4

ypeaces can have a variety o widths. Te two

most common type widths, which are somewhatsel explanatory, are condensed and expanded. Acondensed, or compressed, orm has a tighter let-terorm width than the standard version, and anexpanded, or extended, typeace is wider than thestandard version. Tere are several classications otypeaces. Firstly, there are xed width onts, andvariable width onts. Te xed width onts looklike typewriter text, because each character is thesame width. Tis quality is desirable or somethinglike a text editor or a computer console, but notdesirable or the body text o a long document. Teother class is variable width. Most o the onts you

will use are variable width, though xed widt h canbe useul also (*or example, shell commands in adocument). Te most well known xed width ontis courier.

Letters are identied by their physical characteris-tics like bars, stems, curves, loops and so on. Teclearer they are the legible they are to read. As theyget compressed or expanded, they get distorted andmakes them harder to identiy. Lowercase charac-ters height are commonly attached to its x-height.

Characters with larger the x-height are more denser

or crowded in appearance. But what we want medi-um; so consider the x-height careully. Remarkablytall or short x-height characters are better suited orspecialty projects. Te best text aces have stroke

weights that vary somewhat, which ma ke converg-ing lines that help the eye ow smoothly. But avoidextremes. Modern styles vary too much; at highresolution their beautiul, superthin strokes disap-pear in a dazzle. Sleek geometric styles vary little ornot at all, so are too uniorm.

Te organization o typeaces by weight and widthmay be one o Modernisms great gits to typogra-phy, but the expectation that onts should cohereto some preabricated schedule o styles is one oits greatest allacies. Demanding that every type-ace march to the drumbeat o roman, italic, bold,bold italic is an arbitrary imposition on a naturallydiverse world; in other proessions, this kind o uni-versalist thinking gives us brutalist worker housing,or prairies planted with monocultures. Knockoutdees the Modernist canon, in order to reclaimone o typographys great natural wildernesses: the

American sans seri.

Distorting text to make let-

ters wider or narrower bystretching or squeezing them

with a computer impedes thereading process. The propor-tions of such letters are nolonger familiar to us. Welldesigned type families includecondensed and extendedfaces that fall within acceptedproportional norms.

No.8ypographicule

Type Example

Right Wrong

This typeface has good proportions.

Are you calling

me fat?

Obeying The Rules

Right

Wrong

Use typefaces of mediumwidth. Avoid typefacesthat appear extremelywide or narrow in width.

The role of typographic

experimentation is to ex-

tend the boundaries of lan-

guage by freely probing vi-

sual and verbal syntax and



9/11

No.10No.9

Right

Wrong

Type Example

Right

Wrong

Type Exam

Right

Wrong

Right

Wrong

Te role o typographicexperimentation is toextend the boundaries olanguage by reely prob-ing visual and verbal


ypographicule

6


Good measura title.

THISIS

NARROW

Good kerning.

B ad kerning.

Te role o t y pographic experime ntation is to ex-tend the boundaries o langu age by reely prob-ing visual and verbal syntax and the relationships be-tween word and image. Syntactic exploration enablesdesigners to discover among typographic media an


When lines of type are either too long or too short, the reading process becomes tediousand wearisome. As the eye travels along overly long lines, negotiating the next line becomesdifcult. Reading overly short lines creates choppy eye movements that tire and annoy thereader.

Use appropriate linelengths. Lines that aretoo short or too long dis-rupt the reading process.

In typography line length is the width occupied

by a block o typeset text, measured in inches,picas and points. A block o text or paragraphhas a max imum line length that ts a deter-mined design. Line length is determined bytypographic parameters based on a ormal gridand template with several goals in mind; bal-ance and unction or t and readability witha sensitivity to aesthetic style in ty pography. y-pographers adjust line length to aid legibility orcopy t. ext can be ush let and ra gged right,ush right and ragged let, or justied whereall lines are o equal length. In a ragged rightsetting line lengths vary to create a ragged rightedge o lines varying in length. Sometimes thiscan be visually satisying.

For justied and ragged right settings typogra-phers can adjust line length to avoid unwantedhyphens, rivers o white space, and or phanedwords/characters at the end o lines (eg: Te,I, He, We). Line length is pretty muchwhat it says on the tin. It is the maximumlength o a single line o text beore the nextword in a sentence wraps onto the next lineunderneath. Tis is correctly reerred to as themeasure o a paragraph which seems to be

a dying phrase. Te eyes and brain can only

stay ocused on a line o text or so long beore

atigue kicks in and the reader loses positionwhich destroys the reading process. Some ty-pographers once came up with an optimum linelength o an alphabet a nd a hal, or about 39-45letters. Tis is obviously ar too prescriptive arule to maintain but it does serve as a yard stickwhen evaluating a paragraph or column o textor good readability.

Te ideal line length or text l ayout is based onthe physiology o the human eye... At normalreading distance the arc o the visual eld isonly a ew inches - about the width o a well-designed column o text, or about 12 wordsper line. Research shows that reading slowsand retention rates all as l ine length begins toexceed the ideal width, because the reader thenneeds to use the muscles o the eye and neck totrack rom the end o one line to the beginningo the next line. I the eye must traverse greatdistances on the page, the reader is easily lostand must hunt or the beginning o the nextline. Quantitative studies show that moderateline lengths signicantly increase the legibilityo text.

etters should ow gracefully and naturally into words, and words intones. This means that word spacing should increase proportionally astter spacing increases.

For text type, use con-sistent letter and wordspacing to produce aneven, uninterruptedtexture.

In typography, letter-spacing, also called track-

ing, reers to the amount o space between agroup o letters to aect density in a l ine orblock o text. Letter-spacing can be conusedwith kerning. Letter-spacing reers to the overallspacing o a word or block o text aecting itsoverall density and texture. Kerning is a termapplied specically to the adjustment o spacingo two particular characters to correct visuallyuneven spacing. Letter-spacing adjustments arerequently used in news design. Te speed withwhich pages must be built on deadline doesnot usually leave time to rewrite paragraphsthat end in split words or that create orphans orwidows. Letter-spacing is increased or decreasedby modest (usually unnoticeable) amounts tox these unattractive situations.

Even though typeaces are designed with opti-mum readability in mind, sometimes you needextra help or those letters that dont sit welltogether, such as lower case and l. Historicallythese appear too close and special ligatures werecreated or these, but you can also use a smallamount o kerning to add space and get theletters to sit right. Te same applies to capitalletters at the beginning o a sentence which

sometimes appear disjointed rom its neighbor-

ing letter. Use appropriate line spacing too,

dont just rely on the automatic settings in aprogram. Te general rule I like to use is or anysize up to 12 point use 1 extra point o leading,and anything over that use 2 extra points.

Te amount o letter-spacing in text can aectlegibility. ight letter-spacing, particularly insmall text sizes can diminish legibility. Teaddition o minimal letter-spacing can otenincrease the legibility, and readability. Addedwhitespace around the characters allows the in-dividual characters to emerge and be recognizedmore quickly. (However, addition o space tothe point that individual letters become isolatedrather than simply easily identiable destroyslegibility and readability. Words are otenidentied by their shape as well as by the indi-vidual letters.) As reading with phonetic writingsystems is based in part on word shape recog-nition, part on context, and with unamiliarwords, on phonetic pronunciation, recognitiono individual characters can be aided by slightlyincreased letter-spacing.

TypographicRule


10/11

8

Designer BioMy name is Robert Lieu and I am a senior and a graph-ic design student at Cal State Fullerton. Im a Chinese-Viet-namese American, and my parents were born in Vietnam;they immigrated to the US ater the end o the Vietnam War.

At the moment I live in the dorms on campus, however I planto move to an apartment ater this semester. I come rom Ir-vine, Caliornia and I originally wanted to be a graphic de-

signer because I enjoyed playing with Photoshop since the ageo 12. As I aged and matured, my reasoning or being a graphicdesigner evolved to the idea o problem solving via 2D design.

My rst design job involved helping my parents wedding gowndesign business; I helped designed posters and maintained thewebsite. My second design job was at t he Mihaylo Business Col-lege as a graphic design assistant; it consisted o designing y-ers, brochures, website elements, and even animated gi ads.

My hobbies include V (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Firey, etc.);relaxing with riends, playing video games, sketching, and comingup with ideas by observing my surroundings. I am also very intotechnology; I enjoy reading about eatures on new phones, elec-tronics, etc. I have my own desktop computer which I built mysel.


11/11

A concise review of the tractional rules of typography pro-

vide a departure point for personal typographic investiga-

tions.

Hundreds of vivid full color examples showcase the use of color and type.Clear and concise presentation of basic color and type design principles.Easy-to-follow guidelines provide a foundation for making creative and legibletype solutions.

Dozens of case studies reveal how prominent graphic designers combine type& elements.A morphology (collection of experimental possibilities) offers a method fortypographic experimentation.Proles from prominent designers include published work with thorough ex-planations, as well as personal studies specically for this book.Examples throughout the book are discussed in detail; revealing both methodsand rationale.

typographic rules 1-10

Documents