1. Professional Communications
Working with Type
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Trade & Industrial Education

2. Introduction Johannes Gutenberg invention of movable type around 1454.
Computer technology and desktop publishing allows unprecedented access to printing.
This lesson focuses on the use of fonts for information. There are different concerns when type is used for design.
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3. Basic Definitions
Typeface: The set of characters including uppercase and lowercase alphabetical characters, numbers, punctuation, and special characters. A single typeface contains many fonts, at different sizes and styles.
Font: A set of characters in a specific typeface, at a specific point size, and in a specific style. "12-point Times Bold" is a font — the typeface Times, at 12-point size, in the bold style.
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4. Serif Fonts Serifs French term Feet at the bottom of character
Makes type readable
Used for body copy
Examples: Times New Roman, Garamond
Serifs
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5. Ti Sans Serif Fonts “Sans” is French for “without”
Block type used for headers, subheaders
Good for web. Not enough pixels for serif fonts to be readable.
Examples: Helvetica, Arial
San Serif
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6. Special Fonts Script Fonts: Difficult to read. Use sparingly.
Decorative
Script
Dingbats
Script Fonts: Difficult to read. Use sparingly.
Decorative Fonts: Good for design. Not good for information.
Dingbats: Symbols used for special characters.
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7. Font Styles Bold: Heavy emphasis Italic: Light emphasis
Italics
Wide
Narrow
Bold: Heavy emphasis
Italic: Light emphasis
Wide: Headers only
Narrow
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8. Font Parts Ascender Descender Cap height x-height
Ascenders: b, d, f, h, k, l
Descenders: g, j, p, q, y
Cap height: distance from baseline to top of the capital letters
x height: height of the lowercase letters
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9. Font Measurement Points: 72 points per inch
Picas: 6 picas per inch; 12 points per pica
Em: Size of a square uppercase character (M). Relative to the font point size selected.
En: One half as wide as an em.
Measure: The length of a line, even if the line is not filled with characters (such as a centered or partial line), designated in picas.
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10. Dashes
Soft hyphen: Used to indicate where a word may be broken at the end of a line.
Hard hyphen: A non breaking hyphen, used when the two parts of the hyphenated word should not be separated. (ex.: ill-fated)
En dash: Used to indicate a range. (ex.: Monday–Friday)
Em dash: Used to illustrate a break — as illustrated here.
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11. Vertical Position
Subscript: Slightly smaller than the rest of the font, set below the baseline.
Superscript: Slightly smaller than the rest of the font, set above the baseline.
Subscript
Superscript
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12. ASCII Code American Standard Code for Information Integration
Used to create special characters not listed on a computer keyboard without having to use dingbats.
Numeric code for any character available in typeface. (ex.: © is 169)
Can be used with most software by holding downing alt and typing 0 plus number on numeric keypad. (Windows only)
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13. Spacing
Kerning: Space between two letters. Software usually automatically adjusts kerning now. Kerning must be reduced for some letter combinations (Ta, Ye, AV).
Tracking: Space uniformly between all characters in a line. (E x a m p l e)
Leading: Space between lines of type, traditionally measured baseline-to-baseline, in points.
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14. Columns
Columns: Type is difficult to read if the line length is too long. Setting type in columns helps make type easier to read. Width of the column and line length is relative to the point size.
Column gutter: The space between columns of type.
Gutters: In double-sided documents, the combination of the inside margins of facing pages; the gutter should be wide enough to accommodate binding.
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15. Alignment Mistakes
Orphans: The first line of a paragraph separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column or page break.
Widows: Short last lines of paragraphs, usually unacceptable when separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column break, always unacceptable when separated by a page break.
Rivers: Spaces between words that create irregular lines of white space in body type, particularly occurs when the lines of type have been set with excessive word spacing.
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16. Emphasis Mistakes
All caps: Using all capital letters for emphasis is generally a POOR CHOICE because it is aesthetically too jarring.
Underscores: A holdover from typewriter days and should usually not be used because weight cannot be adjusted and they crash into descenders.
Consider using bold or italics instead of all caps or underscores.
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17. Justification
Justification: Although in special situations, right justified, centered, and right-and-left justified are acceptable, they are usually difficult to read.
Text justified on both the left and right sides often causes rivers and unusual spacing problems.
Right justified type should be used in special cases and is the hardest to read.
For body text, use left justified / ragged right justification in most situations.
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18. Font Selection
Use book weight for fonts. Avoid typefaces appearing too heavy or too light. Stick with typefaces that do not stray too far from traditions (Times, Helvetica, Arial)
Use typefaces of medium width. Avoid typefaces that appear extremely wide or narrow in width.
Body type is most readable when font ranges from 8 to 12 points.
Avoid using too many fonts. Usually a header sans serif and a body serif are all you need.
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19. Paragraph Identification
Clearly indicate paragraphs.
The indent is always the best method to indicate paragraphs.
When possible, set the indent with the software rather than using the tab key.
The indent is optional for the first paragraph.
The extra line of space may be used for long blocks of text, although the indent usually works better with columns.
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