Typography

Prepared by: Marites G. Tagaytayan

MIT
• Objective of Typography
• To make life easier for the reader to read what you’ve written
• To understand the importance of typography in communication
• Entices the readers to engage with the text
 INTRODUCTION TO TYPOGRAPHY

Typography is the craft of designing and arranging type (i.e. text).

Using various typefaces, spacing, sizes and contrast, typographers
seek to make writing more legible, ordered and appealing to read.
Typography is powerful. Yet the field isn’t — and shouldn’t — be
restricted to designers. Typography is a tool writers would do well
to study and wield. Why?
It not only shapes what we read — but how we read.
In fact, typography influenced how you read the above
introduction. The bold text focused attention, the em-dashes
elaborated on ideas and the standalone paragraph stressed the
importance of the sentence.
It’s a shame typography is underutilised by most writers.
More power to those who care to learn and apply its full potential.
Typefaces
• Serif Typefaces
The defining feature of serif types are the little feet
protruding out from the end of letters. Why are they
there? Serif types trace their roots back to antiquity
when stone carvers followed the brush marks of letter
outlines, flaring at end of each stroke/corner.
Because of this, serif types often convey a
more traditional look and feel. Times New
Roman, Baskerville and Georgia all fall into this type
category
Sans-serif Typefaces

Sans-serif types discard the feet (sans meaning without in

Latin). The headings throughout this article are written in a
sans-serif font. Owing to its streamlined, modern look,
this family of fonts is often employed across digital text.
Common sans-serif types are Helvetica, Futura and Ariel.

Sidenote: Historically, serif fonts have been held up as

more readable than their sans-serif cousins. Yet research
 into the topic has found little-to-no difference between the
two families in terms of legibility.
Decorative Typefaces
Decorative typefaces are a special case, sitting outside the two main
families. They are elaborate, creative fonts often used in titles and
graphic designs. They have their time and place — posters, birthday
invites — but are better left alone lest your writing appear whimsical or
childish. Common decorative types include Marker
Felt, Chalkduster and Noteworthy.

A quick aside, the terms typeface and font are used largely

interchangeably. However, to be more accurate, a typeface is a
collection of similar fonts. Without going into too much detail, fonts can
vary by weight (e.g. Thin, Medium, Semibold, Bold), widths
(e.g. Compressed, Condensed, Expanded) and style (e.g. Roman, Italic,
Oblique). For example, the fonts Futura Condensed Medium and Futura
Bold both fall within the Futura typeface.
Using Typefaces

• It’s good practice to use a combination of a serif and sans-serif

typeface to delineate between headers and body text. But stick to two —
three at the very most. Too many typefaces and a piece becomes
befuddled with a lack of hierarchy and structure.

• For example, take this (and ever other) Medium article. Each heading is
written in sans-serif (Marat Sans), while the body text solely uses serif
type (Charter). This is a conscious design choice from the folks at Medium
to establish structure and retain consistency across all articles. Here’s a 
brief post on Medium’s typography choices.
• Lastly, never, ever use Papyrus or Comic Sans in your writing.
Colour and Contrast

• A typeface’s weight is the thickness of its characters (bold being just one).

In increasing thickness, common weights are: Light, Regular, Medium and
Bold.

Why are weights important? They increase contrast across your design/web
page/article. Contrast adds structure to the layout and helps to make the key
messages prominent to a quick scan (I’m looking at you TL;DR).

When an idea is important, bold it.

• Don’t be afraid to use colours either — but do so sparingly. Use too
much and the variety becomes jarring. Like varying weight, use colour
to signify a change in hierarchy or category — for example, a title or
quote. Across my site Word Craft, I’ve employed grey for body text and
used red to indicate anything clickable.
• Underlying all of these points is consistency — the key to good
typography. Decide how you wish to delineate your hierarchy (i.e.
title, headings 1/2/3, body text) and stick to it. Make the text as easy
for your reader to decipher as possible.
 Space and Size

• Line spacing has a large effect on readability. It’s also the option I abused in high
school essays to make it appear as if I’d written more than I actually had.
• Too narrow the line spacing and the writing feels cramped, claustrophobic. Too
wide, and the lines become disjointed from one another, airy. A good middle
ground is 1.2x — 1.5x.
• The left variation is too cramped for body text, while the right is too bloated — yet it
might be the appropriate spacing for a book’s jacket cover. Context is key in Typography.
• Also consider the size of the type. 12px (the default in many text editors) can often
appear too small, making the text more difficult to read than it needs to be. Even a bump
from 12px to 14px helps significantly with legibility — especially over long-form articles.
• When in comes to text alignment, I prefer justified text for my articles — the traditional
choice in newspaper columns and novels. However, when in doubt, choosing left-aligned
is the safe option for most cases. Use center alignment sparingly.
• Lastly, don’t be afraid to grant important sentences whole paragraphs of their own.
• As is often the case, fewer words often have more impact than too many. Provide your
reader with moments to breath as they progress through the text.
 
• Typography plays a vital role in the academe, we use these types of
fonts in order for our learners to read clearly, how information is
being given to its reader and the overall effectiveness of our
content. We use different text styles in our presentation when we
discuss and even put some designs on it but what matters most is
the content and the text being used.
References

• https://writingcooperative.com/the-shape-of-words-an-introducti
on-to-typography-65e013d7a2b4
• https://8thlight.com/blog/billy-whited/2011/07/29/what-is-the-p
urpose-of-typography.html#:~:text=The%20main%20purpose%20of%
20typography,enhances%20the%20message%20it%20presents
.
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