Multimedia & Webpage Design Objective 1.01: Understand typography, multiuse design principles and elements

Consistency is important! Typography refers to the design of the characters and the way they are presented on the page. Consistency is important! Companies pay a lot of money to get their brand image the way they want. Bring up Belk’s big change of the capital B to a lowercase serif to reimage their company for a younger audience.

Ask students to identify where the font is from Ask students to identify where the font is from. (twitter, shrek, star wars) This helps them realize just how important brand recognition is…

Harry Potter

Consistancy!

The Target Audience Publications are created to convey a message to the intended audience, called the target audience. The target audience will determine the: Language used. Typefaces used. Colors used. Graphics used.

Babies Galore! Ask students– if you were going to shop for baby supplies, which store would you most likely go to? People can make snap decisions based on nothing “more” than typeface!

Reference Books Which are you most likely to see in a library?

Shoes Ask students what type of shoes would you guess each store would sell (top: “shoes for girls” or “dancers” is common answer. Bottom: western shoes/cowboy boots is common) for better or worse………..people judge typefaces subconsciously. Designers need to be aware of this to combat or conform to these ideas. That’s not to say that the top store wouldn’t sell cowboy boots, but people might be surprised.

Typefaces, Fonts, and Font Families A typeface is the basic design of a character. Each typeface has a design for each letter of the alphabet, numbers, punctuation symbols and may contain other symbols. Example: Arial abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 !@#$%^&*()_+-=?,.:”’; URL: http://typographica.org

Typeface Categories Typefaces can be divided into five main categories. Serif Sans Serif Script Decorative/Ornamental Symbol

Serif Typefaces Have attributes or strokes at the tips of the letters called serifs. Examples:  Bodoni  Courier  Goudy  Times New Roman Used for body text in printed publications.  Business correspondence  Book text Magazine article text  Newspaper text Newsletter text k Teachers: You may want to explain that serifs make it easier for the reader’s eye to recognize the difference between letters more quickly. Thus, serif typefaces are better suited for body text of printed material. However, sans serif fonts are easier to read on monitors so webpages will use sans serif typefaces for body text.

Serif Typefaces

Sans Serif Typefaces Sans Serif typefaces have no attributes (serifs) at the tips of the letters. Examples: Arial  Gill Sans Berlin Sans  Verdana Used for digital display. Webpages  On-screen display Headings  Tables Captions  Headlines k

Serif vs Sans Serif Typefaces The ends of each character do not have attributes (serifs)

Decorative/Ornamental Typefaces Designed strictly to catch the eye Should be used sparingly. Can be hard to read. Examples Chiller Algerian Forte Used for decoration. Banners and headlines

Script Typefaces French Script Appear to have been written by hand with a calligraphy pen or brush Should never be used to key in all caps. Example French Script Uses Formal Invitations Place cards Poetry Announcements

Symbol Uses decorative pictures or symbols instead of characters Allows the user to use a symbol to convey the message without importing a graphic Can be used for fun or for musical and mathematical symbols Examples: Webdings dfalrjeiraofjid Wingdings asdfjdlfjelrare

Fonts It’s easier to understand fonts if you begin with the original definition of a font. Before desktop publishing, people called ‘typesetters’ set the type by hand using moveable type. Each character was a separate block of metal. The letters were “set” on the layout to form the text. Each typeface had a complete set of metal characters for each size, weight, etc. URL for the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Metal_movable_type.jpg Just for fun: You can have your students try to read what it says and figure out the meaning.

Fonts Continued Each different size or weight required a completely separate set of metal characters. Each metal set of characters was kept in its own drawer and was called a type font. So a font is the specific size, weight and style applied to a typeface. Examples: Arial, bold, 12 point Arial, italic, 14 point Arial, 10 point

Font Style Examples: Bold Italic Underline Shadow Outline Small Caps The font style refers to the slant, weight and special effects applied to the text. Examples: Bold Italic Underline Shadow Outline Small Caps

Font Families A font family is the different sizes, weights and variations of a typeface. Examples: Arial Arial Black Arial Narrow Arial Rounded MT Bold

Typeface Spacing Monospace Proportional

Monospaced Typefaces Each character takes up the same amount of horizontal space regardless of the letter size. Advantages Easier to see thin punctuation marks. Similar characters look more different. If limited to a certain number of characters per line, each line will look alike. Disadvantage: Harder to read in large bodies of text Courier is monospaced

Proportional Typefaces The amount of horizontal space each character takes up is adjusted to the width of that character. Therefore, an i is not as wide as an m and receives less space. Advantages Easier to read. Does not take up as much space as monospaced typefaces. Used in documents and publications. Times New Roman is proportional

Proportional vs. Monospace

Any Questions?