Typography Lecture Notes: Week 4
LEGIBILITY
Optical Illusions
Optical illusions are very important in type design, and many of them can affect legibility. Professional type designers will adjust the type manually in order to make the letters appear visually correct, thereby making the typeface more legible.
Design Elements
99% of type designs need to be legible, because the main purpose of type design is to communicate a message. The only reason not to be legible is if the design is intentional, as in a pattern or a design element; something that’s not intended to be read literally.
On an interesting note, the fine print on medicine and food is meant to be illegible, because they don’t want you to read it. This is a visual trick because it’s technically printed on the product, but the intent is to make the text as illegible and boring as possible so the consumer won’t read it.
Text Size
Text size is one of the main factors in legibility (obviously). The audience is the most important factor in considering the size of the text, because sight quality can vary between various age groups. Generally, the younger the audience, the smaller you can make text while still maintaining legibility. When you design for older audiences, you need to increase the size to make it easier to read. Text, above all else, is functional, and needs to be treated as such. The point is to consider your audience, young, older, does the audience use reading glasses? This is good to consider when writing resumes becuase the type of people to read your resume are generally older. Same principal applies to business cards.
- McDonalds is not a good logo, but it’s very readable, and it’s all about what the audience likes, and what they can recognize.
Leading & Kerning
The default kerning and leading are what the designer thinks is most legible for body copy. Leading can greatly affect readability, and requires a good balance. Display fonts need special attention in regards to this, because their characters usually break away from standard grids and lines. Also, the defaults are slightly subjective, because they depend on the tastes of the type designer. You need to tweak these things to make the best conditions for your specific project.
Kerning is also set at the default of the type designer, and what they think is best for body copy. This is subjective, and should also be treated based on the application of the text.
Visual Emphasis
Reversed characters (black background with white text) will seem bigger in terms of the font’s overall weight. The smaller the typeface, the greater the effect will seem. This can be a good for emphasis, but in general a dark text on a light background will be more readable.
Italicized text and condensed text will be harder to read than the normal style and weight. These can also be used for emphasis, but should not be used for plain body copy.
Color
Color is a major player in readability. Colors like yellow can look beautiful, but can be impossible for something as versatile as a logo design. When color is used, it should be purposeful and enhance the project, but if it distracts and takes away from the message, it should be changed or unused. This is especially important in type design.
Visual Hierarchy
Visual hierarchy is so important, because the designer has an amazing power to control the audience. The designer can tell the audience what to look at first, and then how to direct their eye through the design and information.
- Negative space and contrast grabs the users attention. Heavier typeface can also attract visual attention. People respond to more black.
- Increasing the font size can add additional contrast.
- Color can add further differentiation. This also grabs the user’s attention.
- Changing the layout can draw people’s eye to different areas of the design.
- Introducing reversed type created a very strong impact. This can be implemented if the other techniques are not giving the information enough impact.
- Alignment and the use of a grid can be a good system of organizing information. This is a good thing, except for the nuances like the visual illusions of letterforms. Sometimes, there needs to be some visual correction to make a quality design.
Cool. I love this class
When speaking about legibility, contrast needs a heading of its own because it is affected by type design, type size, and the color mix. A skinny letter stroke has less contrast that a thick one as the examples above show; same black, but the thicker one looks blacker. The various weights of color (I dare not use the term hue because I cannot define it.) also effect contrast. When the audience is aging, High contrast is a must and the blacker the better, I confess to ain intense dislike for light gray intended o be elegant; that really offends. ===gm===
Thanks for the comments! This is a very important issue that I’m looking into heavily, and applying it to my designs. I find it fascinating, and the fact that I’m learning and sharing some solid fundamental basics makes it enjoyable and practical.