When I first started in the media, it was as a layout editor
at the largest Sunday sports section in Australia. 22-year-old me, of course,
naïvely thought my few years of attending media communications, journalism and
layout courses at university ensured I knew all that there was to know about
how a newspaper page worked.
Looking back, the one thing that I took from my layout
subjects was that the human eye reads diagonally down and to the right
(starting at the top left) subconsciously upon first encounter with say, a
newspaper page, an advertisement, a website or blog. With that understanding
being pretty much the only thing I knew about layout and design (besides my
knack for writing headline puns like the one atop this very blog) I had to
learn a few things very quickly concerning exactly how much work goes into
making newspapers look the way that they do.
So, in the next few blogs, I’m going to go into a few of the
‘unseen’ elements of a page (or any piece of writing really) and try to clarify
a few of the first things I had to learn about reeeeeally quickly in order to
keep my job. Let’s get into it, starting with Typography!
One of the unappreciated duties of many professional writers
and editors is not only to make sure the content
of any piece of copy is top-notch, but also that the way the letters and words
are placed together on the page is visually appealing to a wide variety of
readers.
I got reprimanded for my awful typesetting skills by one of
the older sub-editors at the desk when I was doing both page layout and copy
editing in the first few weeks of my job at the newspaper. He was always grumpy
and I was sure he hated me always failing to notice
widows and orphans on the page. I cracked his craggy exterior one day by
exclaiming “leaving an orphan at the end of the column – that’s a paddlin’.” He
burst out laughing (evidently he too, was a fan of this scene of the Simpsons),
and from then on he was a lot more friendly and forthcoming with advice.
There are a few features of typography that are overlooked
by a lot of novice designers. I was going to make a comprehensive list of the
most common typography mistakes that I made and saw, but it has already
been quite expertly handled. Instead, I’m going to give a brief primer into
a few elements of typography that any writer and designer should have an understanding
of (plus a few tips that couldn't hurt).
Baseline
Typography: If typography is simply
the art and technique of arranging, designing and setting type, baseline
typography is its most common form. This blog, and most other text you will
read on any given day, uses a baseline (which can be seen running invisibly
below all text like a ruler). Often when designing pages, advertisements etc.
the opportunity to deviate from the baseline will present itself, but without a
good understanding of the principles of baseline typography, you will never be
able to understand the presentation of text well enough to adhere to the strict
fundamentals of type and design. Even very complicated typographical images
like the one below require an understanding of baselines in order to distort
and manipulate the text for artistic effect. Some typefaces in other languages
than English do not use a baseline, particularly East Asian scripts where each
individual character has its own square ‘box’ with no ascenders or descenders.
X-Height: The
name-sake of this blog, the concept of an x-height is fairly simple, yet
important to a deep understanding of what comprises visually appealing
typography. Succinctly put, an x-height is the height of a lowercase ‘x’ in any
given alphabet or font. Many regard the x-height as a determining factor in the
readability of text, with a larger x-height preferred especially for any copy
that is aimed at an older demographic who may have vision issues. The larger
the x-height, however, can lead to a bevy of headaches for an inexperienced
typographer, with leading and kerning in particular becoming a chore. This
leads us to…
Kerning and Tracking:
These can be confusing (they definitely stumped 22 y.o. me for a while),
but these are two very similar typographic concepts that are often
misunderstood. The ‘tracking’ refers to the spacing between letters overall,
whereas ‘kerning’ is a selective change in letter spacing which can be used
sometimes to make certain pairs of awkward letters look more visually
appealing. The common acronym ‘AV’ for instance is often automatically kerned
by most computer fonts to remove the unnecessary ‘white space’ between the two
letters.
Leading: Similar
to Tracking, Leading (pronounced ‘ledding’) is the space between lines of text.
Although the space refers to fonts, leading in any kind of design software will
always refer to the distance from baseline
to baseline, and is usually measured in points, just like the type.
Changing the leading also can affect the appearance and readability of the
text. When starting a new project involving any amount of copy, a good tip is
to always experiment with the amount of leading after choosing the font to
establish what looks best on the page.
Serif/Sans Serif: The
small decorative ‘strokes’ added to letters are known as ‘serifs’, but not all
fonts apply them. The differences between the two fonts are often understated
by novice layout editors and graphic designers. A handy tip that is the
generally accepted norm is that for printed copy, a serif font like Times New
Roman is the most professional looking and easiest to read, yet for digital
copy a sans-serif font (or a font without serifs) like Arial is almost
universally preferred.
Ascender/Descender: This
one is fairly simple, which means it’s fairly simple to overlook when
organising copy on the page. A letter’s ascender extends above the x-height,
such as the ‘stems’ of the lowercase letters ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘h’, ‘k’, ‘f’ etc.,
while a descender, you guessed it, descends below the baseline, as in the
letters ‘g’, ‘j’, ‘p’, and ‘q’. While
often computer programs will not allow ascenders and descenders to clash by
automatically adjusting the leading, a lot of design programs allow a much
tighter fit, which can often lead to ascenders crossing paths with descenders,
which DRASTICALLY reduces the quality of the text’s readability.
So there you have it! There’s an introduction to typography
elements that might not be immediately apparent when you start manipulating
fonts and customising the design of your copy. They should always be at the
back of your mind when assessing the presentation of the words you write,
because they have many subconscious effects on the brain of readers. Often, a
poorly kerned or leaded article will be so subtly hard to read, that readers
don’t even understand why they stop reading, only that they don’t want to
anymore. It’s our job as writers, editors and designers to ensure that won’t
happen.
