1. Typography
for editors

2. Editors and design
Editors are not usually graphic designers, but they do need to play a role in design and makeup.
“Design” is the look of the publication.
“Makeup” is the task of placing elements into the publication.

3. Editors and design
On small publications, and often in public relations, however, editors also are expected to know basic design principles.
These involve making a variety of choices regarding elements on the page.

4. Type
Of these choices, the single most important is probably choice of typeface.
In principle one-third of a page ought to be illustrations or graphics.
That still leaves two thirds for type.

5. Type
Type is also important to the web—about 80 percent of the web is text, according to research.
Editors may not have concerned themselves with design in the past, but today they need to, in order to compete in the sea of mass media.

6. Type is getting big
A typical editor in the 19th century would use 6- or 7-point type on the front page of a newspaper.
That means he could get about 12,000 words on a page.
Today that font size would look tiny to us—the small print, or a classified ad.

7. Type today
Today an average front page has 4,400 words—or probably fewer, as this statistic is a few years old. Broadsheet newspaper pages are getting smaller.
Type nowadays is at least 9- or 10-point, possibly larger. It was 8-point in the 1950s. Our text keeps getting bigger. Are glasses not as good as they used to be?
And today x-height also is larger.

8. Changing types
Type changed through the decades in response to changing ideas of how a page should look, as well as changes in technology.
The visual demands of television and the internet have changed printed publications.
People today are more likely to scan, less likely to read text-heavy features, and more likely to expect images, probably in color.

9. Long or short?
You may prefer the longer articles of, say, Atlantic magazine, a venerable magazine for educated people.
But in the world of mass media, most of the time editors keep it short for a more general audience of modest reading ability.

10. Page design
Editors used to make up pages, but no one thought much of design.
Today professional graphic designers often play a central role in the look of a publication.
Editors still make up pages but also understand design fundamentals.

11. The basic tool
The basic tool for editors is still the same as it’s been for 500 years: the word.
Actually, type design goes back to the beginning of language itself.
First alphabets were basically abstracted pictures of things, “pictographs.”
In ancient Sumerian text, the word for “ox,” for example, looked like an abstract animal.

12. Chinese ideagrams
Chinese and Japanese writing comprises small pictures for thousands of things, some 10,000 with different meanings.

13. Western revolution
Asian cultures still use these ideagrams. But in the West we don’t.
We have just 26 letters to make up all words. This is done by using words to depict not the way things look, but the way things sound.
For example, “Man” does not look like a man. But it sounds like one.

14. Sounds
The Phoenicians are credited with this system, apparently around to 1000 B.C. It made writing much less cumbersome.
The ancient Greeks and Romans refined the system. They added vowels and a few more consonants.
The alphabet today hasn’t changed much from that of 2,000 years ago.

15. Type anatomy
We are not sure why serifs exist; they may have something to do with Roman stone carving.

16. Measurement
Type, of course, is measured in points; about 72 pts to an inch, 12 pts to a pica.
We usually measure by sixes or twelves. Standard sizes for display type:
14, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, 72.

17. type terminology
The “x-height” is not the point size. It is the actual size of a letter. Point size indicates size of letter plus amount of space around each letter.
Leading (“ledding”) is the amount of space between each line of type.
Italic is a slanted version of serif type. Slanted sans serif type is called oblique.

18. type terminology
We express size of type and leading in two numbers with a slash:
10/12, for example, means 10 pt type with 2 pts leading between each line. It’s pronounced “ten on twelve.”
10/10 is “set solid.” But it still has space between each line, as the type sits on space.

19. Leading
Comparison of leading.

20. Type fonts
We usually call them “fonts” in the digital world, but strictly speaking a font is one size, one style, of one design of type.
More accurate is to call them typefaces.

21. Type families
We can choose from thousands of typefaces. But they generally can be divided into five families:
roman (not capitalized in this usage);
sans serif;
Egyptian or slab serif;
script;
blackletter.

22. Type families
Also available are “miscellaneous”— typefaces that don’t fit anywhere.
Dingbats, called glyphs in InDesign, or small type decorations or illustrations.

23. Roman type Roman is separated into three variations: old style;
transitional;
modern.

24. Roman type
The old style is closer to hand-written letters using a nibbed pen. But its usage is as common today as “modern,” which really dates from the 19th century.

25. Sans type Helvetica is the world’s most popular typeface.
It was designed in the 1950s in Switzerland.

26. Egyptian
Egyptian or slab serif was designed in the 19th century when everything Egyptian was the rage in popularity.

27. Fancy fonts
Script and blackletter typefaces are seldom used by editors, but more often by advertising designers.

28. Decorative fonts Also seldom used are decorative fonts.
On the other hand, dingbats (glyphs) can be handy as simple illustrations.

29. General rules Basic rules for editors using type:
Choose one typeface for headlines, one for body text. Don’t mix. Make choices from different families, for contrast.
Leave a little more space above a headline than between headline and story.
Avoid too wide columns—over one and one-half alphabets. Or too narrow—just a few words.

30. General rules
Avoid typewriter habits: two spaces after a sentence, two hyphens instead of em-dash, rabbit-ear apostrophes and quotes.

31. Hyphens
Note a hyphen, an en-dash and an em-dash are not interchangable.

32. Good practice
Try to avoid overused typefaces, such as times and helvetica.
Consider the look of the font:
Roman: dignified, graceful, voice of authority.
Sans serif: contemporary, efficient, informal.
Egyptian: load, persistent, shouts (less so in body text).
Decorative and specialty faces: use seldom.