Serif Sans Serif
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GEN0002 Effective use of Fonts Styles There are 2 main families of font: - Times New Roman Book Antiqua Century Schoolbook Serif The little ‘feet’ Bookman Old Style on the base of letters are called serifs Arial Tahoma Sans Serif Verdana Comic Sans MS Sans serif Pitch means ‘without feet’ The width of a character is known as its Pitch. With a Fixed Pitch v Proportional Fixed Pitch font, such as Courier New, every letter is Fixed Pitch v Proportional exactly the same width, so an ‘i’ takes up the same amount of space as a ‘w’. With a Proportional font, such as Times New Roman, the width of each letter is proportional to its shape, so an ‘i’ is narrower than a ‘w’. Size Font size is measured in Points. 72 points = 1 inch (2.54cm). 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 24 36 48 72 Readability v Legibility Readability refers to how easy it is to read a lot of text. A proportional, serif typeface at 10- 14 points is the most readable. Avoid setting large amounts of text in Bold, Italics, CAPS, SMALL CAPS, etc. Small amounts of these are OK when necessary. We read groups of words, so avoid very long and very short lines of text – split long lines into columns if necessary. Legibility refers to how easy it is to recognise short bursts of text, such as headlines, posters, signs, etc. Sans serif typefaces are easier to read, particularly at bigger point sizes. Avoid setting types in ALL CAPS. Also avoid typefaces such as Antique Olive, where the ascenders are hardly bigger than the bodies. That feature makes it difficult to tell ‘h’ from ‘n’ or ‘i’. Avoid faces like Hobo that have no descenders in p, j, q, or other letters that should have them. Avoid faces which mix capital and lowercase letters together. THESE MATERIALS, AVAILABLE FROM WWW.LEARNINGTECHNOLOGIES.AC.UK, MAY BE USED BY STAFF IN THE POST-16 SECTOR AS FOLLOWS; COLLEGES OF FURTHER EDUCATION, SIXTH FORM COLLEGES, SPECIALIST COLLEGES, ADULT AND COMMUNITY EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND UK ONLINE CENTRES IN ENGLAND AND WALES ON A NOT FOR PROFIT BASIS. ALL © RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS .