typographic notes

DESIGN
Typography         fonts are the clothing that our ideas wear

tracking   rags     kerning   serif   sans serif   points   type face (fonts)

legebility
-Baskerville, Frutiger, Futura, Garamond, Gill sans, Helvetica, Palatino, Times new roman
-most common font types

Serif vs sans serif 
serif=easier for smaller texts
sans=for titles/big

font variance; too many confuse the reader
-too many fonts spoil the design
-variety not a good design choice

definition: fonts that are too similar cause ambiguity–confusion

readability: use upper and lower case letters for optimum clarity
-ALL CAPITAL LETTERS ARE THE EQUIVELENT OF SHOOTING AND ARE DIFFICULT TO READ
-ok for magazine titles, books, advertisements

Alignment: left alignment reads easiest, consider eye flow as it moves down a page
-writing=middle align
-right align=weird

Emphasis: use these tools with discretion and without disturbing eye flow
1. italics
2. bold
3. size
4. color
5. typestyle change–follow previous rules

Integrity: avoid stretching or distorting type
-arbitrarily distorting fonts compromises their integrity

Weight: strive for sense of balance
-heavy or light
-heavy to light can bring unbalance

-the mac is not a typewriter
-kerning and tracking

kerning=individual space between letters,
-adds cleaner look  AV vs A V, otherwise spacing by itself

Tracking=space between letters, for long writing not titles

Large Text Blocks: Rags
-news papers use justification
-paragraph spacing
-want edge to be uniform

history
-made from blocks then came the linotype