Acknowledgments x
Preface xi
Introduction 1
Chapter One A Brief History of Type 3
Sounds to Symbols 3
Gutenberg and Movable Type 6
The Industrial Revolution and the Mechanization of Type 8
Photocomposition 8
Herb Lubalin and Expressive Typography 11
Into the Digital Age 12
Notable Type Designers 14
Exercises: 22
Design Guidelines, Nancy Sharon Collins 22
Typographic Timeline, Ilene Strizver 24
Historical Design, Ilene Strizver 25
Chapter Two From Metal to Mac: Understanding Font Technology 27
What Is a Font? 27
Font Formats 27
Type 1 (PostScript) Fonts 28
TrueType Fonts 29
OpenType Fonts 29
Techtip: OpenType Features 32
Hinting 33
Font Management Utilities 33
Techtip: OpenType Font Identifiers 33
Typetip: Long S 34
Typetip: Font vs. Typeface 34
Exercise: 35
Exploring Your OpenType Fonts, Ilene Strizver 35
Chapter Three What Makes a Typeface Look the Way It Does? 37
Parts of a Character 38
Type Categories 40
Serif 40
Sans Serif 42
Scripts 43
Handwriting 44
Blackletter 45
Titling Fonts 45
Opticals and Size-Sensitive Fonts 46
Typetip: One- and Two-Storey Lowercase As and Gs 47
Decorative and Display 48
Typetip: Character vs. Glyph 49
Exercises:
Think Like a Type Designer, Ilene Strizver 50
Letter Parts Assignment, Catherine Begle 51
Personal Type Specimen Catalog, Ilene Strizver 54
Type Specimen Book and Typeface Analysis, Audrey G. Bennett 55
Typeface Comparison Book, Joey Hannaford 57
Block Type Project, Erich Doubek 62
Chapter Four Selecting the Right Type for the Job 65
Factors to Consider 65
Design Goals 65
Identify Your Audience 67
Type Size 68
Type Color 68
Legibility and Readability 68
Paper and Surface Considerations 70
Printing Method 70
Low-Resolution Environments 70
What Makes a Good Typeface? 71
Consistent Design Characteristics 71
Legibility 71
Spacing 71
Kerning 72
Even Color and Texture 72
Text vs. Display 73
Type Super Families and Systems 74
Script, Calligraphic, and Handwriting Fonts 77
When the Best Font for the Job Isn’t a Font 78
Typographic Illustration 85
Mixing It Up 89
Text with Display 90
Serif with Sans 90
Weight Contrast (Light with Heavy) 91
Width Contrast (Wide with Narrow) 92
Script and Decorative Designs 92
Type Super Families and Systems 96
Dos and Don’ts 97
Typetip: Type Specimen Materials 98
Typetip: What’s New on the Font Scene 98
Typetip: A Bodoni by Any Other Name? 99
Exercises:
Why Are All the Scary Typefaces Pointy? Christopher Andreola 100
A Garamond Is a Garamond Is a Garamond . . . or Is It? Ilene Strizver 101
Six-Word Memoirs Poster, Elizabeth Resnick 104
Real Signage Critique, Amelia Hugill-Fontanel 107
Chapter Five Formatting Your Type 109
Type Size 109
Line Length 110
Line Spacing (Leading) 110
Techtip: Auto Leading 113
Alignment 114
Typetip: Fine-Tuning Justified Type 116
Indents and Other Paragraph Separators 125
First Line Indent 125
Extreme Indent 125
Hanging Indent (r Outdent) 126
Dingbats 126
Line Space 126
Typetip: Standard Ligatures 126
Techtip: Style Sheets 128
Typetip: Footnotes and Endnotes 129
Techtip: Importing Copy 130
Exercises:
Typographic Lecture Series Brochure, Karen Cheng 131
Visualizing Poetry, Cassie Hester 134
Chapter Six Typographic Hierarchy and Emphasis 137
Typographic Hierarchy 138
Techniques for Emphasis 142
Italics and Obliques 142
Boldface (Weight Contrast) 143
Underscores 143
Case (Caps vs. Lowercase) 145
Type Size 145
Wide vs. Narrow 146
Changing Typestyle 146
Changing Color or Shade 146
Typetip: Avoid Computer-Generated Styling 151
Exercises:
Typographic Hierarchy Study, Elizabeth Resnick 154
Currency Redesign, Jimmy Moss 156
Expressive Typography, Stephanie Nace 158
Chapter Seven Fine-Tuning and Tweaking Your Type 161
Punctuation 161
Quotation Marks 161
Apostrophes 162
Primes 163
Techtip: Unwanted Smart Quotes 163
Hyphens, En Dashes, and Em Dashes 164
Hyphenation 166
Visual Alignment 167
Optical Margin Alignment 167
Techtip: Discretionary Hyphens 168
Techtip: Hung Punctuation and Optical Margin Alignment 168
Horizontal Alignment 168
Vertical Alignment 170
Rags 172
Techtip: Adobe Text Composer 173
Widows and Orphans 173
Typetip: Breaking for Sense 174
Techtip: Glyph Positioning and Baseline Shift 175
Exercise: Editorial Design, Ilene Strizver 176
Chapter Eight Spacing Considerations 179
Tracking 179
Techtip: Adjusting Tracking 182
Kerning 183
Custom Kerning 184
Typetip: Scaling Logos 185
Techtip: Adjusting Kerning 188
Word Spacing 190
Techtip: Adjusting Word Spacing 191
Typetip: Type on a Curve 192
Typetip: Double Word Spaces NOT! 193
Exercise:
Spacing, Kerning, and Visual Alignment Exploration, Ilene Strizver 194
Chapter Nine Finessing Your Type 197
Small Caps 197
Techtip: How to Access True-Drawn Small Caps 198
Initial Letters 200
Raised Initial 201
Dropped Initial 202
Decorative Initial 203
Boxed, Reversed, Oversized, and Overlapped Initials 203
Swash Characters 207
Alternate Characters 208
Type and Color 209
Exercises:
Information Hierarchy Book, David Kadavy 210
Concert Poster Design, Frank Armstrong 212
Chapter Ten Figures, Fractions, Signs, Symbols, and Dingbats 215
Figures 215
Techtip: Accessing Figures in OpenType Fonts 218
Techtip: Tabular to Proportional Shortcut 218
Fractions 219
Techtip: Creating Fractions in OpenType Fonts 219
Bullets 220
Registered, Trademark, and Copyright Symbols 220
Techtip: Indenting Bulleted Lists 221
Techtip: Circle P 223
Accents and Accented Characters 224
Typetip: Creating Accented Characters 224
Parentheses, Brackets, Braces, and Angled Brackets 225
Euro 227
Ellipses 227
Dingbats and Ornaments 227
End Marks 228
Typetip: Typographic Checklist 229
Exercises:
Typographic Principles Card Set, Regina Rowland 230
Spa Brochure, Ilene Strizver 232
Chapter Eleven Type on the Web (and Other Digital Formats) 235
Characteristics of Type on the Web 235
Font Style 235
Type Size 236
Column Width/Line Length 237
Line Breaks 237
Column Depth 238
Color 238
Web-Safe Fonts 238
Sans Serif 238
Serif 239
Symbol Fonts 239
Web Fonts 240
Web-Font Availability 242
Typetip: Web-Font Services 242
Smart Punctuation on the Web 243
Cascading Style Sheets 244
Type as Graphic 244
Typographic Hierarchy on the Web 244
Dos and Don’ts 246
Smartphones, Tablets, E-readers, and Other Devices 248
Exercises:
The Crystal Goblet Online: An Assignment in Two Parts (Transparent and Opaque), La254ura Franz 250
ENCODE / DECODE, Heather Shaw258 254
IPad Editorial, Marty Maxwell Lane 258
Chapter Twelve Type in Motion 263
Combining Type and Motion 264
Basic Guidelines 265
Font Selection 265
Movement 266
Color 266
Sound 267
How to Get Started 267
Dos and Don’ts 268
Exercises:
Four Squares: Text, Color, Motion, Heather Shaw 270
Design is …, Marty Maxwell Lane 274
Film Title Sequence, David Peacock and Michaela Wagoner 276
Digital Narrative, Dermot Mac Cormack 278
Chapter Thirteen Designing Your Own Typeface 281
Handwriting Fonts: A Good Place to Begin 281
Three Approaches to Designing a Typeface 284
Professional Guidelines 286
Techtip: Font Production Editors 287
Exercises:
On Beyond Zebra: The 27th Letter Assignment, Virginia Rougon Chavis 288
Introduction to Type Design: Symphony, James Montalbano 290
Digitize Your Signature, James Montalbano 293
Appendices
Digital Font Foundries and Distributors 295
Web-Font Services 295
Typographic Resources 295
Glossary 296
Bibliography 301
Picture Credits 302
Index 303
