Text in advertising is one of the most important components, allowing advertisers to declare themselves. Therefore, a lot of work in graphic design is associated with its typing and design. But unfortunately, in comparison with the growth of advertising business and the number of graphic designers in Russia, the number of those who approach the font design of text professionally is not increasing so quickly.
Clients who are not savvy about design want it to be “unusual” or “funnier”, and friendly designers meet them halfway. As a result, the text on the site or in the brochure is designed in such a way that serves not for the benefit, but to the detriment of the advertising campaign.
It is hard to say whether the right thing to do in this case, the performers. The advertiser is stubborn and often believes that he understands more than anyone in advertising and design, and the Executive, at times, have to go along with him. This results in terrible design bloopers, which we often see on the Internet and in print advertising. And if these blunders arise out of ignorance, the performers should become acquainted with such a concept as typography.
The concept of typography
There are many definitions of typography. Some might call it a science of typography. Although such a definition is hardly fitting. The laws and rules of typography are quite flexible and non-binding, in contrast to the laws of physics, for example. So, calling typography a science is probably not worth it. Typography is also often called the art of constructing a composition of fonts through typesetting and layout. That’s probably a better definition. But in this article, we’re going to look at typography, not as an art or an action, but as a guide. So, the definition of typography in this article will be as follows:
Typography – a set of laws, rules and norms of text design, based on the study of the reader’s perception of typing, as well as on the experience and generalized opinion of typing professionals.
Typography is useful not only for competent layout of books, newspapers and magazines. It is important in the creation of printed advertising, website design, banner, outdoor advertising and much more. Knowledge and understanding of typography turns the text into a tool for composition. Make it alive, give character and the ability to convey ideas not only in content, but also graphically.
Basic terms
In order to understand what we are talking about in the following articles, let’s understand some of the terms that will occur in the future. If you work in the design is not the first day, most of these terms you have already heard, however, is still worth looking at the definition, perhaps it can complement the information you have:
Typeface – a font or several fonts that have a stylistic unity of style. It consists of a set of characters (usually numbers, letters, punctuation marks, sezsymbols, but may also consist exclusively of non-alphabetic characters). This concept is often confused with the notion of “font”, although the font is a certain typeface of characters, while the typeface defines a general “family” of fonts. For example, the Times New Roman typeface consists of regular, italic, semiboldface and many other fonts of this family.
Kegel – the height of the letter, which includes the lower and upper outline elements. It is measured in typographical points (denoted as pt). For example, the text typed in 14 point equals 14 pt in height. One typographical point equals 1/72 of an English inch. This is approximately 0.352 millimeters.
Interlineage is line spacing. The distance between the baselines of adjacent lines. Interline spacing is measured in typographical points.
Kerning – distance between letters. The main point of kerning is the selection of different intervals between different pairs of specific letters, to increase readability. In typesetting programs, kerning is changing the distance between letters, set as a percentage. It can be either negative or positive. Negative kerning shifts the letters, positive kerning moves them apart.
Tracking – inter-letter spaces applied to a group of characters (word, line, paragraph…). Tracking serves to discharge (lightening) or compact (darkening) the set, as well as for the curl and kick-out words (changing the number of typed lines).
Rubrication is a system of text division, in which co-subordinated headings of different levels express the relationship and co-subordination of the parts headed by them (headings, chapters, sections, subsections).
The grapheme is the basic form of a sign, which helps to distinguish it from any other meaningful sign, regardless of the artistic features of its execution. The grapheme, as a rule, defines the unit of the text. For example, the basic form (grapheme) of the letter “A” helps distinguish it from the letter “B”, regardless of the typeface in which it is typed.
The grapheme is the basic form of a sign that helps distinguish it from any other meaningful sign, regardless of the artistic peculiarities of its execution. The grapheme, as a rule, defines the unit of the text. For example, the basic form (grapheme) of the letter “A” helps distinguish it from the letter “B”, regardless of the typeface in which it is typed.
A glyph is a specific graphical execution of a grapheme. If several glyphs for the same grapheme are used in the text (for example, depending on the context), such glyphs are called each other’s allografs.