Chapter 15: Understanding Typography + Production

1. Chapter 15: Understanding Typography + Production Connor Borton

2. Type of terms Defining terms that relate to typography will help the designer in choosing and understanding type 1. Typeface and font: A range of type in all characters in one size and weight. 2. Points: A unit of measurement in type. There are 12 points in 1 pica. Type that is 1 inch in height is 72 points tall. 3. Pica: A unit of measurement in type. There are 6 picas in an inch. 4. Baseline: The line upon which all the letters sit. 5. Ascenders: Letters that fall below the baseline and include letters g,j,p,q and y. 6. Descenders: Letters that rise above the baseline and include the letters b, d, f, h, k, I, and t. 7. C/Ic: Refers to the use of capitals and lowercase letters in design. 8. Down Style: the practice of capitalizing only the first letter of a headline and proper nouns that occur after the first letter. The style is easily read because it mimics sentence style. 9. Small Caps: Refers to the use of letters that are the height of lowercase letters but have the posture of capital letters. 10. X-height: Refers to the height of the lowercase letters in proportion to the capital letters. Typefaces with large x-heights are more visible on the printed page, especially in small sizes.

4. Categories, or races, of type • Serifs • Serif types, is the easiest typefaces to read, are marked by the finishing strokes or touches on the ends of the stems. • Serif types have been the preferred text type because it allows readers to connect the letters visually. • Most designers place serif types into subcategories based on the time period in which they were designed • Old style serifs, among the first serif typefaces, are noted for consistent contrast, rounded strokes and slanted serifs. • The transitional serifs exhibit more contrast between thick and thin strokes, show almost no tilting in the angle of the swells of the rounded letters. • 2. Sans Serifs • a. Sans, a word originating from French for without, indicates typefaces whose stokes do not end in serifs. Known as being geometric, precise and monotone, sans serif typefaces are great for creating contrast between body type and other kinds of information, and in organizing information.

6. 3. Square or Slab Serifs b. Square or slab serif typefaces end in precise, blocky or straight-line serifs. Although difficult to use in text type because of the wide nature of the letters, slab serifs suggest a certain ruggedness and stability. 4. Scripts or cursives c. Type faces that resemble connected or disconnected handwriting, scripts or cursives suggest a certain informality and can work effectively in certain kinds of advertising or in displaying specific kinds of information. 5. Black Letter d. Most commonly referred to as Old English, black letter types are often associated with the nameplates of newspapers such as The New York Times. 6. Novelty e. Types that can’s be simply categorized into these other classifications often are labeled as novelty or miscellaneous typefaces. Exhibiting some “extra” quality, they are designed to display characteristics of their names or quirky characteristics that cause to attract attention.

7. Example of slab serif and square serif

8. Example of Old English Font

9. 1. Choosing Type a. Page designers are better off choosing serif and sans serif for most of their type design. b. Within these categories, bolder variations of serifs and sans serifs work best for display type such as in headline displays. c. On occasional use of a script or novelty typeface such as in headline displays. Book or roman weights work best for copy display. d. With the advent of desktop publishing, a vast array of typefaces are quite visually affective, with smoothed edges that will print and read well. 2. Type Consistency a. Creating style templates for the various type patterns in a publication will create consistency and ensure that the publication doesn’t have a scattered, eclectic look on every page. It will ultimately save the designers a lot of time when importing text from word-processing software programs used by different staff members. b. In a desktop-publishing software program, style sheets can be defined for each individual type area on the page. These could include the text type, secondary headline type, caption type, folio type and any other design styles being used by a particular page or section of the publication.

10. 1. Production • a. With the advent of desktop-publishing software, most designers have taken over primary responsibility for the prepress production of their publications. • b. Files are given to printers in digital format, in camera ready copy for converting into film for plating or in film format ready for plating. • c. Anything with 600 dpi are considered low resolution • d. Schools using laser printers will find improved reproduction of type and images by drawing them through a computer language called PostScript or TrueType, on a metal drum with a laser beam. • e. Other schools use ink jet or dot matrix printers for output. These methods are lower quality. • Printing • Most printing today is done by the offset lithography method, based on the principle that oil and water do not mix. The offset method is printing from a smoother plate surface onto which the image has been “burned” • “burned” images are exposed through a large camera. • Once the areas are treated from the printing rollers adheres to them, while the remaining surface is treated with water rollers that reject the oily ink. • The inked image is then transferred-offset-to a rubber roller suface called a “blanket,” that prints the image on paper.