“One of the principles of durable typography is always legibility; another is something more than legibility: some earned or unearned interest that gives its living energy to the page.”
-Robert Bringhurst
A typeface is a single set of character that share stylistic unity. It usually comprises of an alphabet of letters, numbers, punctuation and diacritical marks. Font used to be defined as a complete character set of a particular typeface in one size. But now being digital, a font has become an electronic file that rendered the typeface in all sizes. In simple forms, a typeface is what you see and a font is what you use to make it happen.
Letterforms:
Use each letter as a form and each letter can become a shape. It can be used as an illustration, an icon or graphic focal point. A successful way of exploiting letterforms is to use them at large sizes and extreme proportions. Letters can be used individually or an a ‘container’, whether this be as a silhouette or to contain a pattern or image. As well as this, as a designer the letter can be used partially by slicing, cropping or flipping horizontally and vertically. An example of using the letter as a container for an image is the Brooklyn Public Library Branding where the letters which make up the logo create a space for the images and colours. The aim of this was to show the brand’s identity and future events that would be taking place.
Using the letter as a space is an effective design tool, but the reverse of it, is also just as effective. The spaces inside and around the letters are effective design elements as well. By using the counter space around the letterforms can led to multiple different forms, all based off simple letters. This can also be referred to as the negative space. By filling this space with a colour, pattern or texture highlights that space, which in turn builds enough of the letter’s outline to make it recognisable. A successful example of this, is the design of the Brand Union logo, which is built solely using the negative space surrounding it. This creates an unique composition which doesn’t always fill in the spaces you would naturally expect, like the spaces inside letters, but places shapes in certain places to give the illusion of the letterforms, when in actual fact it is a plain white background.
Similar to imagery, letterforms can imply certain emotions. For example, a flowing italic would best suit a poem whereas a heavy slab serif would work well for a bold political announcement. The age of a font can also effective the emotion it conveys, as an old-style typeface could be used to add more credibility during a debate. Other factors can effective the emotional context of letterforms. Rounded shapes and lighter weights can often add a more feminine touch to words, so could be used for health a or cosmetic brands. The opposite could then be used for more masculine products, the letterforms would be designed with a heavier weight and more squared off.
“Type is speech made visible, with all the nuances, inflections, tonalities, and even dialects of the human voice.”
-Jan White
Typography is as connected to the tone of voice it carries as it is to the words it forms. Different typefaces carry different tonal modulations, making certain ones sound a certain way in peoples’ heads when they read them. Similar to music, the curves, shapes and flow of typefaces led us to interpret them in a way the designer hopes. Typography has similar properties to music and sound including pitch, amplitude, duration and timbre. These are altered within the type through changes in the baseline, font weight and size, letter spacing, font width and posture. For example, a way to increase the volume of the type’s voice is by increasing its font size. Having a larger font size seems louder and smaller ones seem quieter.
Similar to a body, all typefaces have an anatomy. There are a lot of little details which tell you about a type and differentiate it from others. These include:
Cap height: this is the distance between the baseline of the text and the top of the capital letters.
Baseline: this is the imaginary line which runs along the bottom of the type and where all obedient letterforms sit.
Counter: the negative space which is enclosed within a letter.
Ascender: this is the part of the lower case letters, which rises above the x height.
X-height: this is the height of a lower case ‘x’ or the lower case letters.
Set width: the width of a character in relation to the height.
Descender: the part of the lower case letters which hangs below the baseline.
Terminal: the endpoint of the letterform.
A wordmark is a type of logo design that includes only the company name, no symbols, mascots or badges. They can also be called logotypes and include monogram variations from smaller spaces like social media profiles. Due to the fact of how simple word marks are, typography and spacing are extra important. The key is to keep it simple. The type only look is popular and timeless and can work across industries from tech to media to fashion and food.
Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type by Ina Saltz (2019)
Typecast: the voice of typography by Kara S Fellows (2009)
Fontshop- Meet Your Type