Typography The art of using text to produce professional looking publications.
Wording that can be the same Font is also commonly called type or text They all mean the same thing You can say font face or type face but they mean the same thing
Font/Type Fonts are categories of text. Common groups of fonts include:
Times New Roman
Font/Type Families Fonts are grouped into families and given a name: Arial Garamond Comic Times
Within a Font/Type Family there can be many members including:
Arial Rounded MT Bold
Arial Unicode MS
It’s like your own Family. We have the Smith family Dad- Frank Smith Mom- Mary Smith Son- Sam Smith Each are part of the Smith family but they are all individuals (type style) who have the same last name.
Styles are applied to fonts to change the way they look. Examples of the most common type styles include:
If you have a type style you have: Sam Smith with cowboy appeal Mary Smith with Gothic appeal Frank Smith with Business appeal You can take away their styles but they are still members of the Smith family.
Typeface A font/type becomes a typeface/ font face once a style has been applied to it. For example; Arial Italic Times New Roman narrow Rockwell Extra Bold
Family + Style =Type/Font Face
Fonts are used to help create a moodor a feeling in a publication. Fonts can also limit or enhance readability so choose your fonts carefully.
Use if you have lots of type you want people to actually read: Serif Serifs on lowercase letters are slanted Oldstyle Diagonal stress Goudy Thick/thin transition in strokes
Modern Not good choices for extended amounts of body copy Thin lines almost disappear, thick lines are prominent Effect on the page is called “dazzling”
Serif Used in children’s books because of clean, straightforward look Examples: Times New Roman Californian
Sans Serif “sans” (without) in French No thick/thin transition Same thickness all the way around Great for creating eye-catching pages
Script Like cheesecake- they should be used sparingly so nobody gets sick
Decorative Easy to identify. If the thought of reading an entire book in that font makes you want to throw up, it falls under decorative. Fun, distinctive Powerful use is limited Often used in headlines Juice Chillycooldots
Serif or Sans Serif Serif A typeface with lines on curves extending from the ends of the letters A B C a b c
Serif or Sans Serif Sans Serif A typeface that is straight-edged A B C a b c
a x c All About Letters x-height The height of the body of all lowercase letters such as the letter x in a typeface. All lower case letters are designed to be no taller then the x-height.
An imaginary horizontal line on which the bottom of letters rest.
b x h Parts of Letters Ascender The lowercase letter that extend above the x-height – b, d, f, h, and l
g x j Parts of Letters Descender The lowercase letters that fall below the baseline – g, j, p, and q
A design element in which a letter (usually the first letter of the paragraph) is much larger font and embedded into the surrounding text. Drop Caps
Character Spacing Tracking A feature that enables you to adjust the relative space characters for selected text Adjusts the space between a group of characters or words (applied to the whole word)
Character Spacing Kerning The process of “fine tuning” spacing by adjusting the space between characters Adjusts the space between two characters
Leading The vertical distant between base heights adjusts the space between lines
Alignment The placement of text or graphics relative to the margins. Left Right Centered Justified
Units of Measurement Pica Traditional typographic measurement of 12 points or 1/6 of an inch. These letters are 12 points or 1 pica high. Spacing is often measured in picas. For instance, in a yearbook spread, all elements should be at least one pica apart.
Units of Measurement Points The basic measurement system used to measure the size of type. There are 72 points to an inch. 72 point font
Reverse Type Reverse Type White or light colored text that appears against a darker background Reverse Type
Leaders Dots, dashes, or characters that proceed text or a tab setting.
Small Caps Small caps are lettering that is in all caps, except those letters that would normally be lower case are in small caps.