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Module 3 Typography - notes

The document discusses the importance of typography in design, emphasizing its role in visual communication and the need for clarity in conveying messages. It outlines the structure of typography, including key terms related to letterforms and typeface categories such as serif and sans serif. Additionally, it highlights essential aspects of legibility, including kerning, leading, tracking, ligature, and alignment.

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11 views4 pages

Module 3 Typography - notes

The document discusses the importance of typography in design, emphasizing its role in visual communication and the need for clarity in conveying messages. It outlines the structure of typography, including key terms related to letterforms and typeface categories such as serif and sans serif. Additionally, it highlights essential aspects of legibility, including kerning, leading, tracking, ligature, and alignment.

Uploaded by

khodi.rasi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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11

GRADE

Design
Module 3
Typography

© Material designed by Curro Digital Learning. No part of it can be used without express written permission. Created by (YOUR 1
Typography

Our world is filled with visual elements. Think about posters, advertisements, magazines, billboards and
television.

For a good designer it is important to open people’s eyes to really look at the information they want to
communicate. They make use of the elements and principles of design to communicate with the viewer,
but they also use typography in a clever way to grab your attention.

"Good typography is like a crystal wine glass, thin as bubble and just as transparent, its purpose to
reveal rather than hide the beautiful thing it is meant to contain. Good graphic design and typography
should help people communicate with all the clarity and idea deserves" - Beatrice Ward.

Structure of typography

Through using appropriate design elements and making responsible design decisions you can ensure
that your message reaches the right people and that the right people receive the correct message; a
disregard for the design elements and principles may lead to your message being misunderstood, or
worse, unnoticed!

Typography is one of the main elements of visual communications and as a discipline and an art form
one of the oldest design activities. It can be traced back to the Sumerian people of Mesopotamia in
200BC. It is therefore, essential to understand the main characteristics of a letterform and of specific
typefaces.

Main categories in typefaces

Typefaces consist of a number of letterforms including lowercase


alphabet letters, uppercase or capital alphabet letters, numbers
and symbols, all of which were designed together to belong to one
family. A typeface may have more than one version of the typeface
within the same type family for example there is a very narrow
version and a very thick version of some typefaces.

The first things you need to take note of are the key terms used to
describe different aspects of the design of a letterform, which
include:

Aspects which relate to an individual letterform

The x-height, ascenders and descenders


Serifs
Typeface categories
Roman, italic and bold
Aspects which relate to the relationship between letterforms

Leading and kerning


Ligatures
Alignment

© Material designed by Curro Digital Learning. No part of it can be used without express written permission. Created by (YOUR 2
The ration between the x-height, ascenders and descenders of typefaces vary greatly and
influence the balance and structure of a typeface.

Once you have established the ratio of the letterform you need to identify it as
either serif or san serif.

Choosing a font, styling of text

SERIF TYPEFACE

A serif typeface has fine strokes added to the main horizontal and vertical strokes of the typeface

SAN SERIF TYPEFACE

A san serif typeface litterally means without serif, and refers to typefaces that do not have a serif added
to the main vertical and horizontal strokes of the typeface. This seem to be clearer and more modern.

© Material designed by Curro Digital Learning. No part of it can be used without express written permission. Created by (YOUR 3
The general typeface families include:

• Serif
• San Serif
• Slab
• Display
• Script
• Display
• Symbol
• New Wester
• Black letter

Legibility is extremely important when working with typography. Therefore you should focus on:

Kerning: refers to the adjustment of space between individual letters


Leading: the space between adjacent lines of type
Tracking: when you automatically adjust the spaces between a series of letters and words.
Ligature: when two letters' spacing is so problamatic that a new single combination letterform is
created.
Alignment: the relationship between the text and the page or a smaller section in which the text is
placed e.g. centered, left (flush), right (flush), justified

© Material designed by Curro Digital Learning. No part of it can be used without express written permission. Created by (YOUR 4

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