text and image

Text and ImageThis is no shotgun marriage

Thursday, February 4, 2010

A B C D E F

HelveticaGaramond

Verdana

Times New Roman

Courier

Lucida Sans

When faced with the decision of what typeface to use, most of us simply go to the pulldown menu and

grab the first one that looks good.


If you were setting out to make a digital image, and your method of choosing elements for your picture was to grab your favorite clipart tidbits, you would most likely fail the assignment.



You and your clipart



You and your clipart Me and my grade book


Just as a carefully composed picture considers all of the elements in it, the typeface that one chooses should be just as serious. If this were left to taste or an arbitrary decision, who knows what could occur...


Just as a carefully composed picture considers all of the elements in it, the typeface that one chooses should be just as serious. If this were left to taste or an arbitrary decision, who knows what could occur...

Apple Computeryeeesh.....


or, with a little care, your text can elegantly harmonize with what you are trying to say...


Some basic type anatomy:

d ptype

siz

e ascender

descender

x x height Refers to the part of a lower case letter that is equal to the lower case x

TCap Height

Baseline

T TSerifs

sans serifor

without serif

helveticatimes

new roman


Some Terms:

Typeface:

Font

Type Family:

Leading:

Kerning:

Tracking:

The distinctive design of an alphabet including all points, sizes, numbers and punctuation. Example: Helvetica

All letters, numbers and punctuation of a single size in a single typeface. Example Helvetica 12pt.

Bold, Oblique, Bold Oblique, Light, Light Oblique. This example is Gill Sans Light Italic.

Pronounced “ledding”, this refers to the vertical spacing between baselines. In traditional printing, strips of lead of varying thickness were placed between the rows of type.

This is the space between two letters.

This is the space between l e t t e r s i n a l i n e o f t e x t .


Blocks of type

Leading


Kerning


Rh

yth

m,

stru

ctu

re a

nd

sim

ila

rity


Text as Image


text and image

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