OUGD504 - SB01 - Type Setting: Rules, Theories & Practical

OUGD504

SB01

Type Setting: Rules, Theories & Practical

The line - reading process - eye saccades

Typography - the letter - design of individual characters
                     - the word - how glyphs fit together
                     - the line - combination and arrangement of words in a body or sequence

Typesetting
hierarchy - size, style, weight, colour & treatment can all add emphasis to any element.

Alignement
Left aligned (default) creates ragged edge
Justified text - no rag, flush to margins.
centred right and left - not commonly used because it is difficult to read.

Rag - uneven vertical margin

paragraphs
indented - no space between paragraphs
Full line space

Letter Spacing - leading
distance between baseline of successive line of type. bad leading can seem cramped. Ascenders and descenders can touch which makes it confusing to read. leading should be slightly larger than font size.

Tracking
amount of space between group of letters. readability decreases when negative tracking is applied

Kerning and pairs
distance between two letters

Hidden Characters
Invisible characters such as returns, spaces, tabs, etc. only appear when you have 'Hidden Characters' turned on. 

Line Length
8 words to 12 words per line. (40 - 75 characters). Too long - hard to read and struggle to find the next line. Short line causes hyphenates and the rag to become more extreme. 

Widows and Orphans
Words left hanging or separate from forming a box of text. Fix using tracking or line spacing.

Dashes and Spaces
Hyphen, en dash, em dash.
Hyphens keep the rag smooth. more than one word, communicating the same idea eg. free-for-all
En Dash represents range e.g London - Glasgow. Needs Spacing.
Em Dash can take the place of commas


In response to this seminar we restructured the first page of Great Expectations using the rules and theories above.

Playing with Hierarchy 

Including time line and playing with words per line