Typography

Typography
The art of expressing ideas in printed form
through the use of appropriate typefaces
Typographer
Print designer
– Must use typeface that “fits” the product
 Typeface Terminology
Point size Uppercase
Hairline Lowercase
Stem Body height
Stroke Ascender
Stress Descender
Serif Base line
Set width Waist line
Counter
 Typestyles
Black Letter Nicolas Jenson
Manuscript Master engraver for
(handwritten) French Government in
Other forms: text or 1400’s
Old English
Developed Roman
Roman lowercase letters
Delicate and lighter Printed 150 books
type
 Typestyles
Italic Type
Developed and first used by Aldus Manutius, a
printer in Venice, Italy

Black letter, Roman and Italic type styles

were used universally in Europe for two
centuries
 Modern Typefaces
1890 William Morris, English architect
Revived many of the early typefaces that are
still in use today for book publication
Garamond
Janson
Caslon
 Contemporary Typefaces
Modern versions of the basic book faces of the
early printers
Modifications of the basic book faces made for
newspapers
New display types – thousands are in existence
Typefaces are copyrighted, but anyone can change
a typeface slightly and give the style a new name.
 Roman Typeface Elements
Heavy elements
Light elements
Serifs

MLONRS
 Typeface Classifications
Roman (also called serif)

This is a good example

Sans serif –
of sans serif
This
Square serif (also called slab serif) –
would be a good example of
square serif type
 Typeface Classifications
Black letter or text – This
is an excellent
example of black text
This is a good
Script or Cursive –

example of script or cursive

Novelty or Decorative – This
would be a
type of novelty or decorative
Typeface Families, Series, Fonts
Typeface Family – variations of one style
type –weight variations - Antigoni Light,
Antigoni italic, Antigoni Medium, Antigoni
Medium Italic, Antigoni Bold, Antigoni
Bold Italic
Width Variations – Bernard Condensed,
Eurostar extended, Gloucester Extra
Condensed
 Typeface Series
Range of sizes of each typeface in a family
Common type sizes used in printing are 6, 8,
10, 12, 14, 18, 24, 36, 48, 60, and 72
With computers, it is possible to generate
typefaces in any size
 Type Font
A font consists of all the characters (letters,
numerals, punctuation marks, and symbols) that
make up a specific typeface – such as 9 – point
Bodoni or 12 – point Helvetica Bold.
Ligatures – joined letter combinations like fi, ff, fl,
ffi, ffl.
Small caps
Pi characters – stars, asterisks, arrows, percent
signs, checkmarks – “dingbats”
 Typesetting Measurements
Point= 1/72”
Measure vertical height of type and spacing
between lines of type
Pica= 1/6”
Measure line length and composition depth
Text or Body Type – 4 point – 12 point
Display Type – above 12 point
 Typography Assignment
Using magazines, find 2 examples of each
typeface classification. You should have 12
samples when completed with the
assignment. Paste these onto an 8 1/2 x 11
sheet of holey paper. Label each. Turn these
in by end of period today for grading.