Posted by: Zise
in Zise Blog on Nov 25, 2009
Sorry for the vast distances between posts... As promised here are some more handy tips for typography and some links to find out more!
Understanding The Basics
- The Type Size, also called the Cap Height, is the overall height of capital letters in the formation of words.
- The Ascender is the upward tail on letters like h, l, t, b, d, and k.
- The Descender is the downward tail for letters like g, q, and y.
- The Counter is the white space located inside letters like o and p.
- The X Height is the height of the letter, and does not include ascenders or descenders.
- Tracking (the horizontal space between each character)
- Leading (the space vertically between lines of text - name comes from the physical piece of lead that used to be used in mechanical printing process to separate lines of text)
- Kerning (the amount a character's horizontal space encroaches into it's neighbour.)
- Baselines are the boundary that the lowest part of the letter rests on.
Type Alignment
- Default writing techniques will use left alignment to create easy to read text for the reader. Casual letters, unpublished manuscripts, and basic paragraph styles tend to fall into this category.
- Center alignment is used to draw attention and is used a majority of the time for Headlines or Titles. Newspaper headers, book titles, and report titles are excellent examples of center alignment.
- Right Alignment is a clean crisp professional look and is used quite a bit for corporate business letters, return address labels, business cards and a variety of other applications where a formal style of alignment is needed.
- Justified alignment. This type of alignment creates perfect alignment on both the left and right margins without regard for the actual characters. This can lead to a condition called tracking, or the creation of “rivers” of white space throughout the text body. If this happens, reduce the tracking gradually to correct the illusion.
You can read more about the information above by visiting -
Posted by: Zise
in Graphic Design on Sep 25, 2009
Over the next little while we will be posting some information relating to Design Essentials. We hope you enjoy the postings.
Lets start by explaining typefaces.
Type is used for a variety of purposes and is basically surrounding us. There are plenty of ways typography is used, such as in books, posters, newsletters, cards and just about anything you could think about.
Typography not only helps the communication process but is also used for creative and artistic reasons. For instance, type can be very useful in attracting a viewer or consumer to your brand. There are a variety of options you must face when using typography and these will be explained in our later posts.
To start with, here is some information on typefaces. You will notice that the most common typefaces are Serif and Sans Serif.
Serif - This typeface has the little strokes on the ends of each letter. Serif is used most commonly in printed materials such as magazines, books etc.
Sans Serif - This sytle of typeface has clean ending and are typically used for headings, signage and other areas where you need high readability (print).
When using typefaces for the Web, you will notice that most of these are using the Sans Serif Typeface as it is easier to read on lower screen resolutions monitors.
Common Sans Serif typefaces are Arial, Verdana and Helvetica
Ornamental Typeface - These are usually used for decorative purposes and are not really suitable for body text.
Symbol Typeface - This is used for symbol purposes. An example of a symbol typeface is wingdings or Dingbats
Script Typeface - The usuage of this typeface is to simulate handwriting or calligraphy. This typeface is not usually used with body text as it becomes difficult to read.
Here are a couple more you can read about :)
Monospaced Typeface
Gaelic Typeface
Blackletter Typeface
Mimicry Typeface
Stay tuned for our next posting...
