Chapter 3 • Text 77

CHAPTER THREE distribute TEXT or post, LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you will be able to: copy, ¾ Distinguish between different categories of fonts not ¾ Identify the proper application of those differentDo categories ¾- Appreciate font “personalities” ¾ Make informed choices about type size ¾ Calculate appropriate line spacing ¾ Maximize the few bits of text in a graph Proof ¾ Know what text to remove from a graph Draft Copyright ©2018 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 3 • Text 77 s I give one last look at a report for work, my usual process is probably similar to yours. I Guiding Ideas A spend an afternoon fussing with the layout and putting a polish on the report before sending Text fonts are used for narrative text it off to my boss for one last review. I did just that with a report page similar to the one shown here in Headings and callouts are emphasized Figure 3.1. Long reading is in 9- to 11-point size I am using this page as my example because it is probably where I spent the most time. It was Line spacing is 11 to 13 pointsdistribute important to me (and now I am really letting on No more than three fonts are used how far I am willing to go) that this table con- Body text has stylistic uniformity tained rows of equal height. This required some or nudging, squishing, and testing until the table Bullets are slightly less thick than text was just right. Then I emailed it to my boss and asked him to give it a last inspection before I shipped it out to the client. post, Figure 3.1 A painstakingly formatted report page copy, not Do - Proof Draft Copyright ©2018 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 78 Presenting Data Effectively Instead of sending it back to me, he saved me a step and passed the report directly to our client. I am an easygoing person. I was not bothered by his actions, but I did want an approved and finalized copy of the report for my own records, so I opened up his attachment, and a version similar to Figure 3.2 was what I saw. At that point, I freaked out. Now, if you aren’t a bit of a nerd about these things, which I admit I am, you may not immediately notice the differences between these two versions of the report. First of all, the perfect spacing in the table was ruined in the second version, in that one of the rows grew in height when a word in the first col- umn (Islander) jumped down to a third line. Second, the heading and narrative fonts both look different. And, to add insult to injury, the last paragraph on my distributeoriginal page walked the plank in the version in Figure 3.2. or Figure 3.2 How the report page looked to the recipient post, copy, not Do - Proof Draft Copyright ©2018 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 3 • Text 79 Our report was struck by a very annoying phenomenon called font substitution. I am sure it has happened to you, too. You email your poster to your copresenter and when she receives it, the formatting is wacky. You plug your flash drive into the conference session room laptop only to discover it does not look at all how you intended. You upload your slides to the webinar platform and nothing looks right. By the end of this chapter, you will have several strategies on hand to ensure that you are not plagued by these same issues. What Is Type? distribute The term type refers to the shapes of individual letters and to the stylistic variations that contribute to legibility in different contexts. I love to think about how thereor is a type designer sitting in a foundry somewhere in the world, crafting a new lowercase letter t to improve on the 13 t’s I already used in this sentence. For most of us, at first glance the differences in the angle of the curvature at the top of a t do not seem like a big deal. Yet we happily and usually unknowingly arepost, on the receiving end of such careful thought all around us, every day. We do not need to worry ourselves too much with the specifics of creating letter shapes. We just need to know how to use them well in order to present data effectively. Most of us refer to this topic area using the word font. I do. During my dissertation study, when I developed the four main topiccopy, areas that are now sections of this book, the graphic designers on my review panel disagreed. The conversation went like this: Me: So, I’ll break out these principlesnot into Graphics, Color, Font, and Arrangement. Peter: You can’t call it font. It’s called typeface. Me: Typeface? Who Dosays that? Everybody I know calls it font. Peter: Fine, well, then- just call it type. This is very different from font. Me: Call it type?! Don’t you know that in the real world there are lots of different meanings for the word type? I’m calling it font. Peter:Proof Font is what you see. Typeface is what you design with. Me: . If you relate Peter’s comments to your graphic design friends, they will be impressed by how smart you are. However, for the rest of us and throughout this book, the words Draftfont, type, and typeface are used pretty much interchangeably. Don’t tell Peter. And we Copyright ©2018 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 80 Presenting Data Effectively are going to go far beyond just type to talk about text in general and how we can work it to tell our story. How Do I Tell These Typefaces Apart? There are two basic types, or categories, of type: serif and sans serif. Serif distribute Figure 3.3 Serif fonts are one of the major The first class of fonts is serif. The top option in font categories (from top to Figure 3.3 is Baskerville Old Face. orNow, this may bottom: Baskerville Old Face, sound silly, but font nerds like me enjoy a feisty Georgia, Times New Roman) discussion about how fonts have personalities. For example, the properties of Baskerville Old Face are said to reflect a professional, serious, focused, yet comfortable personality.post, The next serif down the line is Georgia. Georgia’s personality is known as friendly and intimate. Do you see those personality traits when you compare Georgia to Baskerville Old Face? Georgia is an effec- tive choicecopy, for tiny print because it is highly legible, even at small sizes. The third serif example shown is Times New Roman. Times New Roman has a rep- utation. It is seen as sturdynot and classic. But it is a bit of a flash point for type nerds. Times New Roman is commonly used in newspapers because it is so easily read at a small size. It alsoDo was the default typeface in Microsoft Word for a very long time. For those reasons, some say it is overused, past its prime, and even a little cold. - So while these three examples are all a bit different from one another, what they have in common is Guiding Idea that they are serif fonts. Serif is a Latin word that means “little feet.” See Text fonts are usedProof for narrative text the little feet at the bottoms of the letters? Those feet help create an almost continual line along the bottom of a length of text, smoothing the reading process. Serif typefaces make reading more fluid (Song & Schwartz, 2008). Research consistently shows that fonts with serifs are easier to read, especially in lengthy Draft smaller print. The APA Guide (2010) advises that serif fonts are preferred. In its style book, the Modern Language Association of America (MLA, 2009) says that the font used should be “easily readable” (p. 116) and suggests Times New Roman. Copyright ©2018 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 3 • Text 81 You should probably pick a serif font for at least Figure 3.4 All serif fonts have little feet the body text of a written report, where you expect an at the ends of the lines that make up the letters audience to engage in sustained, narrative reading. In a “Guiding Idea” sidebar here, these are referred to as “text fonts” instead of “serif fonts.” I promise that I am not intentionally throwing more jargon into the mix. My rationale for this will become apparent in just a few more pages. distribute Sans Serif Titles, headings, and callouts may be a good place or to change things up, especially since these are Guiding Idea bound to be a larger size and shorter bursts of text. Headings and callouts are emphasized It is perfectly appropriate to choose a sans serif, or “no little feet,” font in those places. post, Figure 3.5 Sans serif fonts are the other major category of type—no little feet here (from top to bottom: Baskerville Old Face, Open Sans, and Jokerman) copy, not Do - Here again is our focused friend Baskerville Old Face, starting us off at the top.

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