Typography The Wonderful World of Fonts Big-G “Typography is a key element of graphic design. To a designer, fonts are like a brick to a bricklayer or petrol to a taxi driver. Typography is the lifeblood of our industry and a designer’s typographic skill is one that often goes unnoticed... So let me teach you some more about the wonderful world of typography”. Did you know that the human eye only reads the top of half letters? Serif Traditional, old fashioned style

Sans Serif Contemporary, modern style

A serif is a small line attached to the end of a stroke in a Although the exact origin of serif is still debated, most letter or symbol. theories seem to point back to the days of stone carvings. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface One of the more popular theories (Father Edward Catich, (or serifed typeface). The Origin of Serif 1968) suggests the serifs are a result of carvers chiseling over painted outline of letters on stone, A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, where the brush strokes would create the flares at the edges from the French sans, meaning “without.” of letters. Serif fonts are helpful in body paragraph text, Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as the individual serifs serve to guide the eye across each as “Grotesque” (in German “grotesk”) or “Gothic” and character. serif typefaces as “Roman.” Sans-serif is just the opposite, based on the French word sans, which means without.

Source: creativemarket.com Fonts Can Make People Trust You...

Fact #1: Fact #2: Fact #3: Baskerville is a trustworthy font. Experiments show Fancier fonts are associated with more skill in These study results do not mean fancy is that people are more likely to believe information certain professions; in one study, diners who necessarily the best way to go. The same set in Baskerville, versus text in Georgia, received menus with fancy fonts assumed the chef researchers found that when people were given a Helvetica, Comic Sans or Trebuchet. had more skill. task, those who got fancy fonts estimated the task would take nearly twice as long. So, why Baskerville? Cornell University professor Diners who received menus with simpler fonts did David Dunning thinks Baskerville has a British not attribute as much skill to the chef. But… Bottom line: use fancy fonts wisely! sense of formality and solemnity that enhances its credibility.

Source: creativemarket.com Dyslexia If you’re dyslexic, you’re probably better off reading material set in Helvetica rather than, say, Comic Sans. If you prefer Courier, Arial or Verdana the good news is that those fonts should be relatively easy for you to read too. In short, look for sans-serif fonts with distinct letter spacing, line spacing of at least 1.5 and mind that the Ps and Qs are not merely the same letter facing a different direction.

Source: creativemarket.com Typeface vs. Font

A typeface is a collection of Gotham Typeface fonts, and a font is a style Gotham Light within that family. Gotham Light Italic Gotham Book Gotham Book Italic For example, Gotham is a Gotham Medium typeface and Gotham Book Gotham Medium Italic Gotham Bold Italic is a font. Gotham Bold Italic

Source: wuggrace.wordpress.com Anatomy of a Typeface...

It is not necessary to know all these terms, but these are the meaningful elements that designers have to think about when creating or using a typeface. The most commonly...

Source: wuggrace.wordpress.com What is Kerning?

Quite simply - Kerning is the space inbetween letters. This can be adjusted to suit the needs of the designer’s work... What does

Leading is the space Leading inbetween lines of text. As with Kerning, Leading can be adjusted to suit the needs of the mean? designer’s work... So there you have it! Typography - a lot more to it than meets the eye eh?! For more interesting facts about typography, we recommend a book by Birmingham based graphic designer Paul Felton called: “The Ten Commandments of Typography & Type Heresy”