By Creative Blog
Typography design is the centre of a designer’s skillset and is about much more than making something legible. The typeface you choose is the different between good and bad design. Typefaces are created by craftspeople over a substantial period of time. The most professionally designed fonts are designed with various weights and styles to form a complete family. Furthermore, plus carefully considered kerning pairs, multi-language support with international characters and expressive alternate glyphs to add character and variety to typesetting.
The height of each character is known as its 'x-height'. When pairing different typefaces, it's generally wise to use those that share a similar x-height. The ‘set width’ is the width of each character. The point system is the most common method to measure type. Type sizes can be measured in inches, millimetres or pixels.
Leading refers to the vertical spacing between each line of type. Years ago in the days of metal typesetting, strips of lead were used to separate lines of type. The general rule for legibility is that the leading should not be anything between 1.25 and 1.5 time greater than the font size.
Tracking and kerning is the process of adjusting the space between characters to create harmonious pairing. For example, where an uppercase 'A' meets an uppercase 'V', their diagonal strokes are usually kerned so that the top left of the 'V' sits above the bottom right of the 'A'.
The term measure describes the width of the text block. One rule of thumb is that your lines should be 2-3 alphabets in length so 52 – 78 characters, including spaces.
Typography should have hierarchy and scale. When all the type within the layout looks the same, its difficult to know which is the most important information. Size is a keyway in which designers create hierarchy and guide their readers.
