Chapter Four: Typography
It might seem ironic to begin our survey of the media of visual communication with print, since this course
about reading images more than about reading words. However, words themselves are images, and print is
the standard technology for producing and distributing these images. A brief history of print will help clarify
the connection between words and images.
History
We could begin anywhere in this history, with cave paintings or cuneiform, since they are all visual
representations of linguistic concepts. But the most logical place to begin is with the advent of the first
printing press. Prior to Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century, books
were created via a painstaking process that made them too expensive for anyone but the rich to own. These
books were made of sheets of parchment, or planed animal hides, whose surfaces were covered by hand
with calligraphy and illuminations, generally by monks who lived in the relative peace and security necessary
for these scholastic labors. The parchment was then bound together between heavy, leather-sheathed
wooden covers. A large book like the Book of Kells (Figure 1) could take years to write, illuminate, and bind.
Obviously, these weren't books you could check out of your village library.
Figure 1: Book of Kells
Gutenberg developed a system of printing involving moveable blocks of molded metal type and a press for
imprinting the inked type on parchment. His first bibles, we think about 180 of them, were finished in 1455;
only about 60 remain today. One of these is at the University of Texas at Austin, where it is on view to the
public in the Harry Ransom Center (Figure 2):
Figure 2: Gutenberg bible at HRC, UT Austin
From http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/
After Gutenberg, printing remained largely unchanged for three hundred years. Books began to be printed
on paper made from rag fibers rather than parchment, but printing was still a relatively slow process
compared to today, and books were still costly.
In the 19th century, two innovations changed the printing landscape. The first was the Fourdrinier machine,
which could convert wood pulp into cheap paper; the second was an advance in the speed of printing
through steam and electricity. These changes put newspapers and books in the hands of most Americans
(about 80-90% of whom could read, according to some scholars).
Printing technology remained relatively stable again until the development of the first computer printers in
the 1950's. These were, as you have probably seen, dot-matrix printers that used a bank of pins to print
lines of text on paper that scrolled through the machine in a continous strip that was then separated into
pages along perforations (Figure 3). The first inkjet printers, which were able to create type that looked like
set type, were invented in 1976 but not released to the consumer market until 1988. Laser printers, built on
the dry-ink "Xerox" platform, started to be used widely in the 1990's.
Figure 3: Dot matrix font
From http://www.identifont.com/show?1SO
Perhaps the most significant change in the print industry, however, is not the printer attached to the
computer but the computer itself. Digital technologies have changed the way we design, set, and view type.
You may now choose from hundreds, even thousands of font types to build your website or print a brochure
from a desktop publishing program without having to build your font using geometry and produce it in metal
molds. Kyle is going to talk to us on Monday about digital typesetting, if you are interested in creating your
own fonts. Until then, however, there is still a great deal you can learn about selecting and using pre-set
type.
Terms and features of printing
To understand and use fonts effectively, you need to understand some basic terminology. In Figure 4, you'll
see some of the basic terminology associated with the shape and spacing of a font.
Figure 4: Some labels for font features
For a more complete glossary and diagrams, see http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28539
The term "leading" refers to narrow strips of lead that were used to separate lines of type in the type block.
In addition to these terms, you need to know the following:
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kerning: the horizontal spacing between characters in a word
serif: the horizontal "tails" at the terminal strokes of Roman and other characters.
styles: these include bold, italic, and underline as well as superscripts or drop caps (also called
small caps, looks like this: DROP CAPS)
point and pica: left over from typesetting terminology, these terms are American adaptations of the
French printing system. A point is defined as .013836 inch. There are 72 points to an inch. Twelve
points equals one pica (as you're guessing, 12-point font is one pica). So, there are 6 pica to an
inch.
font families: Blackletter fonts (Figure 5) are old gothic styles, beautiful but nearly unreadable for
text blocks. Roman fonts are the most common print fonts. Times New Roman, the print style of the
London Times in the 1930's, is the most famous of these fonts with curved and very readable
serifs. Sans serif fonts, such as this one, are most used for advertisements and screens. Script
fonts are used for high-status print documents such as wedding invitations and diplomas; they
represent hand-lettering. Novelty fonts are decorative but can be used as a design element of
repetition to enforce a certain aesthetic in a document. These are best used extremely sparingly.
Figure 5: Lucida Blackletter
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justification: The rule on the page that text blocks are "snapped" to. Full justification creates
irregular spacing between words in a line in order to maintain regular spacing at both sides.
Lessons in Typography for Visual Communicators
1. Printing on paper typically occurs at anywhere between two and eight times the resolution of screen
display. That means that a 2"x2" image printed on paper at 300 dpi (dots per inch) will appear at 8.3"x8.3"
on a computer screen because screens display at 72 dpi.
2. Contrast and readability are almost always better in four-color printing on white paper than in RGB on a
computer screen.
3. The flicker rate of a computer monitor can drastically affect the readability of print.
4. The human eye is most comfortable scanning lines of text no longer than 12 words.
For these reasons, keep the following in mind when you use print on screens and paper:
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Sizes: For readability on a computer monitor, aim for 12pt font or larger; for readability on a
projected screen, such as in a PowerPoint presentation, 16pt is the minimum readable size, and
larger is better. For paper, 10pt font is the minimum comfortably readable size. Remember 11pt
font, the "cheater font." It looks about as large as 12pt to the untrained eye and will fit quite a bit
more on a page.
Font families: For screens, sans serif fonts are more readable that serif fonts. Scripts and italics are
almost unreadable on screens.
Column widths: Remember that some people still have lower-resolution computer monitors. Try to
keep the widths of your paragraphs--and tables--under 800 pixels (dots).
Contrast: Make sure there is high contrast between your text and background. It's easier to read
dark text on a light background than vice versa.
Match the style of your font to the rhetorical situation. You don't want to use Comic Sans for a
formal report, and vice versa, Courier New will be a little stiff for a birthday card.
Fully justified text is very difficult to read for long periods. Right justifying some text makes for an
interesting effect, especially in titles, but a ragged left margin is almost impossible to read over
multiple lines.
Exercise
Find a particular font that either (a) fits your personality or (b) is a good fit to the information it presents.
Explain the fit using as many of the terms you learned in this chapter as possible.
References
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/making/
http://www.identifont.com
http://www.efuse.com/Design/web_fonts_basics.html
http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28539
http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/freefonts.html