Typography is the study and process of typefaces; how to select, size, arrange, and use them in general. Traditionally, typography was the use of metal types with raised letterforms that were inked and then pressed onto paper. In modern terms, typography today also includes computer display and output.
#20411
Setting type means selecting and arranging groups of characters, but not all of those characters have to be part of the alphabet. Dingbats are non-typographic elements that can enhance your work by adding variety and functionality.
Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design
#10249
Dirty Dozen Typefitting Tricks for Designers
One of the most frequent questions from workshop attendees is 'What do I do about too much text?' Did you ever notice how any publication is like a container? No matter how much space you've got, it always seems to get filled up. Have you ever had a client call with 'just a few' revisions and additions and it turns out to be several pages? What I'd like to know is how come the article can get bigger but the page can't! So many people in my workshops say 'But Fred, I can't use your great graphics tips because I have too much text!' Here are a few suggestions for those times when you're on deadline, and the copy is just a few lines longer than the space you've designed for it...
Showker, Fred. Design and Publishing Center (1996). Design>Typography
#22635
A Disagreeably Facetious Type Glossary
For the amusement and edification of people beginning a love affair with fonts.
Microsoft (1998). Design>Typography
#26693
Do These Serifs Make Me Look Phat? Conveying Personality with Typeface
Explores some possible approaches to understanding typeface 'personality,' including empirical research and scholarly discussion, in the hopes of generating more discussion about how we can understand and use typeface personality when creating organizational identity packages.
Striker, Amy. Orange Journal, The (2005). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric
#25152
Always use elements contained in the font you're manipulating!
Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Typography
#31195
The Effect of Typeface on the Perception of Email
This study investigated the effect that a font has on the reader's perception of an email. Based on a previous study by Shaikh, Chaparro, and Fox (2006), a sample email message was presented in three fonts (Calibri, Comic Sans, and Gigi). The three chosen fonts represented a high, medium, and low level of congruency for email messages. The least congruent typeface (Gigi) resulted in different perceptions of the email document and its author. However, no significant differences were found between the moderately and highly congruent fonts.
Shaikh, A. Dawn, Doug Fox and Barbara S. Chaparro. Usability News (2007). Design>Typography>Online>Email
#31191
The Effect of Website Typeface Appropriateness on the Perception of a Company's Ethos
This study investigated the effect of website typeface appropriateness on the perception of the site's company. Results indicate that typefaces that are high in appropriateness should be used for websites. Neutral and low appropriate typefaces significantly decreased the perception of the company as judged by professionalism, believability, trust, and intent to act on the site.
Shaikh, A. Dawn. Usability News (2007). Design>Typography>Usability
#29139
This study investigated the effects of two different computer texts on readers' recall with three different content types (Blocked Constructs, Ordered Constructs, and Detail Layered Constructs) based on individuals' different working memory capacities. The findings indicated that the format and content types influenced how well information was remembered among readers. Participants with low working memory who read traditional scrolling text produced better recall scores than those who read the paged hypertext in two of the three content types. However, for those with high working memory capacity, all results came out differently depending on the content types.
Lee, Moon J., Matthew C. Tedder and Gangxin Xie. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Design>Typography>Online
#28395
In the web environment, text has enormous strengths. In many situations, using text delivers far better results than graphics. Web designers should be daring and use text wherever possible.
Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Design>Web Design>Writing>Typography
#19404
The Effects of Bold Text on Visual Search: The Downside of Highlighting
Everybody knows that by making a word bold that it will ‘standout,’ be perceived more readily and (obviously) processed faster. For example, which of the following formats will elicit the fastest performance by customer service representatives -- A or B?
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Typography>Web Design
#27527
The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News
This study examined the effects of line length on reading speed, comprehension, and user satisfaction of online news articles. Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed. No effects of line length were found for comprehension or satisfaction, however, users indicated a strong preference for either the short or long line lengths.
Shaikh, A. Dawn. Usability News (2005). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Usability
#21222
We really don't have to be stuck in bland land anymore. Font embedding is here, which means that we can use just about any font we want to on our Web pages, and users will actually see it.
Mulder, Steve. Webmonkey (2002). Design>Web Design>Typography
#27474
Typographically, the Euro symbol had a difficult birth. Instead of defining a currency symbol, the European Commission dictated a logo. The inclusion of the character in computer fonts is being delayed. Both copywriters and designers struggle with inadequate solutions. The five-year history of the Euro mark, or: How typeface designers and corner-store owners restore the health of a character.
Siebert, Jürgen. Font Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Fonts
#18337
The Euro: What Will It Mean to the Desktop Publisher?
How will the character be inserted into typeset copy? Every time typesetters set a piece containing a monetary amount in Euros, they will have to type a character that doesn't exist in most typeface character sets. A partial remedy is the inclusion of a Euro character in the character set of Macintosh and Windows. For instance, starting in Mac OS 8.5, pressing Option-Shift-2 will insert the Euro character — but only in the fonts that come with the Mac. Older fonts will insert a different character.
Adams, Peter C.S. Makingpages.org (2002). Design>Document Design>Typography>Europe
#31192
Examining Legibility of the Letter "e" and Number "0" Using Classification Tree Analysis
This study investigated the legibility of onscreen typefaces and the influence of individual character features on correct identification. Specific attributes of alphanumeric characters and symbols shown to be the least legible were measured and analyzed using a statistical method called classification tree analysis. Results from this analysis for the letter "e" and the number zero are discussed.
Fox, Doug, Barbara S. Chaparro and Ed Merkle. Usability News (2007). Design>Typography>Online>Usability
#27533
Examining the Legibility of Two New ClearType Fonts
This article introduces six new ClearType fonts developed by Microsoft. Legibility of two of the serif fonts, Cambria and Constantia, is compared to the traditional serif font Times New Roman. Results show that the legibility, as measured by the number of correct identifications of briefly presented characters, was highest for the new font Cambria, followed by Constantia, and then Times New Roman. Old style digits, such as 0,1, and 2, used in Constantia resulted in confusion with the letters o, l, and z. Times New Roman symbols were confused with both letters and other symbols.
Chaparro, Barbara S., A. Dawn Shaikh and Alex Chaparro. Usability News (2006). Design>Typography>Fonts>Online
#25911
The effect where titles spread out and then blur away to nothing has become a popular way to make 'plain old text' look more interesting. It's really not that complex: What we do is 'expand' the text by animating the tracking (the space between the letters).
Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video>Typography
#29236
Explicit Structure in Print and On-Screen Documents 
The structure of print and on-screen documents is made explicit through headings and links. Three important concepts for understanding explicit structure are (1) the display-unit properties of each document medium, (2) the flexible relationship between explicit and implicit structure, and (3) the distinction between populated and unpopulated locations in a hierarchy. These concepts help us better understand standard print documents, structured writing, websites, help systems, and PowerPoint, as well as the potential effects of content management systems on how documents are created.
Farkas, David K. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Document Design>Information Design>Typography
#20936
Helvetica is back, bigtime. On the street, it’s in campaigns for companies as different as IBM and The Gap. At the online font retailers, it tops the sales charts. In the metaculture, Getty Images uses it to express control of the visual world. It’s quite shocking to look at the font sales charts, and realize that the serif genre has dropped off the map. But you know this already, because whenever you try a serif font in a layout it doesn’t look right — too oldfashioned. But perhaps that’s the wrong term, because the sans faces ruling the roost today are anything but contemporary, mostly dating from the mid-20th century, many from a lot earlier.
Shinn, Nick. ShinnType (2003). Design>Typography>Fonts
#25170
A brief overview of the history of type.
Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Design>Typography>History
#22390
Fehlende WingDings-Zeichen in PDF-Dateien
Gewisse WingDings Zeichen fehlen, wenn ein PDF File erstellt wird. Dies ist unabhängig davon, ob Winword (Office 97) oder eine andere Applikation benutzt wird. Ausserdem spielt es keine Rolle ob das PDF mit dem Word Makro erstellt wurde oder nicht.
Transcom (2000). (German) Design>Typography>Document Design>Adobe Acrobat
#25166
Kenn Munk designs wonderfully different fonts and dingbats, some of which are inspired by urban typography. Travel to his neighbourhood, Frederiksbjerg Denmark, for an insightful visit with typography of bygone days.
Munk, Kenn. Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Design>Typography>Regional>Scandinavia
#20689
Kerning is the art of adjusting (usually tightening) the space between individual letter pairs. This selective, manual spacing is done to eliminate awkward spaces and to make words easy to recognize. Kerning is also known as letterspacing.
Conneen, Anne. Poynter Online (2003). Design>Typography
#30301
Font Type: Helping Us Understand Information
You wouldn't think that something as seemingly insignificant as the type of font you use could be so important, but it really is. As one of the goals of technical communication, we try our best to make information easy to find and understand. The type of font being used has a lot to do with this goal.
Lanier, Clinton R. sense and usability (2007). Design>Typography
#30302
In the first lesson on font type I highlighted how they can be used to make information easier to understand, and how the look of the font accomplishes that. Here I'd like to discuss how fonts can actually affect the meaning of that information.
Lanier, Clinton R. sense and usability (2007). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric
