The History of Writing
“Language existed long before writing, emerging probably simultaneously
with sapience, abstract thought and the Genus Homo. In my opinion, the
signature event that separated the emergence of palaeohumans from their
anthropoid progenitors was not tool-making but a rudimentary oral
communication that replaced the hoots and gestures still used by lower
primates. The transfer of more complex information, ideas and concepts
from one individual to another, or to a group, was the single most
advantageous evolutionary adaptation for species preservation. As long ago
as 25,000-30,000 years BP, humans were painting pictures on cave walls.
Whether these pictures were telling a ‘story’ or represented some type of
‘spirit house’ or ritual exercise is not known.”
 http://www.historian.net/hxwrite.htm
 Georges Jean. (1992) Writing: The Story of Alphabets and
Scripts. (Discoveries Series) New York : H.N. Abrams.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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“TYPOGRAPHY
is the balance and interplay of letterforms on the page, a verbal
and visual equation that helps the reader understand the form and absorb the
substance of the page content. Typography plays a dual role as both verbal and visual
communication. As readers scan a page they are subconsciously aware of both
functions: first they survey the overall graphic patterns of the page, then they parse
the language, or read. Good typography establishes a visual hierarchy for rendering
prose on the page by providing visual punctuation and graphic accents that help
readers understand relations between prose and pictures, headlines and subordinate
blocks of text.”
 http://www.webstyleguide.com/type/
Two excellent books about Graphic Design History
 Philip B. Meggs. (1992) A History of Graphic Design. New York : Van Nostrand
Reinhold.
 Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller. (1996). Design Writing Research: Writing on
Graphic Design. New York : Princeton Architectural Press.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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It’s essential to understand HOW humans really
read…so that we make appropriate design decisions.
When we are just learning how to read, we sound out each letter. We
learn about combinations of letters that change sounds (ch, sh). We
become familiar with prefixes and suffixes (s, es, ed, ing) and
demonstrative adjectives, (in)definite articles such as the, an, a,
these.
Fluidity of reading occurs when we no longer have to process words
letter sound by letter sound. Our brain recognizes patterns of
sounds, placement of words within a sentence. This pattern
recognition and letter/word prediction process enables us to speed up
our reading.
We rely on the shape of a word.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Most of us quickly pick up spelling errors (a letter is missing or
transposed) when reading something for the very first time.
And we can even read a document fairly easily if the inking of letters
is uneven, blotchy.
This ability is the basis for
CAPTCHA, a type of
challenge-response test used in
computing to determine whether
or not the user is human.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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BECAUSE WE RELY HEAVILY ON SCANNING WORD SHAPES, USING ALL CAPS
MAKES READING HARDER. IT FORCES US TO SPEND MORE TIME (BRAIN
ENERGY) TO DISTINGUISH THE LETTERS FROM EACH OTHER BEFORE WE CAN
PROCESS THE SOUNDS OF THE LETTERS.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Now let’s get into the nitty gritty of fonts.
Typeface
Bold, Italic, Outline
Font
Letterform
Point
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Size
Ascender,
Descender
Condensed
Contrast
Extended
Stress
Serif
Mono Spacing
Sans Serif
Proportional Spacing
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A typeface is the full collection (family) of a type design.
Typefaces have rather distinctive appearances.
Here’s the Helvetica typeface.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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A font is a specific selection within a typeface.
Each one of these is a
specific Helvetica font.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Fonts within a typeface come in different sizes:
the larger the point size, the larger the letter size.
Fonts within a typeface come in different thicknesses and
spacings: for example: condensed and extended.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Fonts within a typeface come in different styles:
normal, italic, bold, outline, bold-italic….
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Within the font are characters (letters, numbers, punctuation, etc.)
The letterform is the development or design of the shape of a character.
Here are some of the terms used in describing a letterform.
Ascenders and Descenders are the parts of the character that go
above or below the X-Height. As you see in the above example, the
descender on the y has a curved shape and the p has a straight
shape. They help us to effortlessly differentiate the letters.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Letterform designs also use contrast and stress to
differentiate characters, increase legibility, and
enhance the style of the fonts and typefaces.
We recognize illuminated
manuscripts easily. The
letters/words rely on high contrast
and directional stress.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Fonts are either
serif sans serif
or
.
Serifs are the little squiggles attached at the tips of letters. They increase legibility
because they provide subtle and additional information that distinguishes one letter from
another. (Remember the theory of pre-attentive processing from the Brain Lecture?)
 John P. Boyd. Course ENG 503: Scientific Visualization and Information Architecture. University of Michigan.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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 Serif for printed text

sans serif for projected text
Serifs…improve readability when printed at high resolution, but they
actually interfere with readability on the screen.
Older Adults and children prefer sans serif fonts (Arial & Comic).
© Jody Walker, 2007
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Fonts are either
Mono spaced
© Jody Walker, 2007
or
Proportionally spaced.
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When computers were first used,
the only typeface available was
monospaced. This works fine if
you want to line up computer
coding, but it’s not so easy to
read large amounts of text.
Think of graph paper and within
each tiny block is a character
(including a space).
Now, image
that the thin outlines around each
block disappear. What you are left
with is a lot of extra space around
certain letters.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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In proportionally spaced fonts, each
character has a different amount of space
around it, so that when letters are
combined into a word, the letters come
together proportionally.
© Jody Walker, 2007
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