1. The Typography of Authority — Do Fonts
Affect How People Accept Information?
Errol Morris
managed to crack the code on type in a clever way, writing an initial column
presumably testing whether readers were optimists or pessimists based on how
they responded to statements called out separately from the main text. With the
assistance of a computer programmer, Morris was able to show each viewer these
statements in one of six randomly generated fonts — Georgia, Comic Sans, Baskerville, Computer
Modern, Trebuchet, or Helvetica. Then, through
analysis of the more than 45,000 quiz results, he and David Dunning, a
psychology professor at Cornell, were able to draw some conclusions.
In short, Baskerville
proved to be what they call “the king of fonts,” making the true statements
more likely to be accepted and less likely to be dismissed. The p-value was
0.0068. Baskerville was so good for conveying information because it
“disappeared” to the reader more easily than other fonts with more exotic
strokes, x-heights, or designs, allowing almost unconscious absorption of the
underlying information. This comports well with Morris’ little experiment —
after all, there’s nothing more likely to aid credulity than unconscious
absorption of information.
Interestingly,
the runner-up to Baskerville was Computer Modern, a font designed for the
American Mathematical Society and its TeX typesetting
program. It’s widely used in scholarly publishing because of its compatibility
with TeX. A a modern typeface, it has perfectly vertical axes and strong
contrast between thicks and thins. By comparison, Baskerville is a transitional
font, bridging between old style and modern, with some counter offsets and less
contrast between stroke weights.
This raises to me a broader
question about how type contributes to the authority and credulity of
scientific information.
The power
of type is nicely illustrated in this section from the film Helvetica. In this clip, Michael
Beirut describes how Helvetica itself injected authority and power into
corporate communications, launching the current era of corporateness:
Period.
Is this typographic power
part of why the PDF is still so important to our readers and users?
Look at the typography of
the HTML pages of most sites, and you see major deficiencies. It’s often sans
serif, with long lines and poor leading, and set in sizes and weights that have
no rhyme or reason — or it’s Times Roman with compromised screen contrasts and
strange kerning. It’s no wonder readers want the PDF — there, the journal truly
manifests itself, in typography, page layout, and sensible allocations of
information in an understandable aesthetic.
While Morris believes he
tested typefaces, he was actually testing a number of factors that stream from
the faces he chose and their setting — kerning, leading, line set, type size,
and so forth. He conducted his test on backlit monitors. Would the outcome have
changed if paper had been the substrate?
The aesthetics of authority
are delicate. Push too far into the adventurous, and you can lose it. Stay too
long in an outdated mode of representing authority, and you look irrelevant or
stodgy.
As this experiment shows,
even the letterforms you choose could have an impact on how much authority your
words carry.
2. Point Sizes
A point size is thee measurement system for specifying typographical dimensions. The British and American point is 1/2 and inch. A Pica is a measurement for specifying line lengths. One pica is 12 points or 4.22mm. There are 6 picas to an inch. It is commonly abbreviated as pt.
The point has long been the usual unit for measuring font size and leading and other minute items on a printed page. The original printer's point, from the era of foundry metal typesetting and letterpress printing, varied between 0.18 and 0.4mm. The defined length of a point varied over time and location until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the traditional point was supplanted by the desktop publishing point (also called the PostScript point), which was defined as1/72 of an inch. In either system, there are 12 points to the pica. Though 12 point has become the default size in digital word processing—and also the basis of many institutional document-formatting rules—that’s mostly due to the typewriter tradition. It’s not the most comfortable size for reading. Nearly every book, newspaper, and magazine is set smaller than 12 point. (One major reason is cost: bigger point sizes require more paper.)
If you’re not required to use 12 point, don’t. Try sizes down to 10 point, including intermediate sizes like 10.5 and 11.5 point—half-point differences are meaningful at this scale.
But I can’t guarantee 12 point will always look too big. That’s because the point-size system is not absolute—different fonts set at the same point size won’t necessarily appear the same on the page. So you need to let your eyes be the judge. Don’t just rely on the point size. For instance, the three fonts below—Sabon, Times New Roman, and Arno—are set at 12 point, but they’re not the same size visually.
You can match the length of two
fonts by setting a block of text twice: once in the old font and once in the
new font, both at the same point size. Adjust the point size of the new font until
each line of text breaks in roughly the same place. (You won’t be able to
match them exactly.) Below, the point sizes of Sabon and Arno have been adjusted
so they occupy the same space as Times New Roman.
The point size can be even smaller in professionally typeset materials like publications and stationery. Text on business cards is often only seven or eight points. All Caps text is often just as legible as regular lowercase text at these sizes.
It’s fine to emphasize text with a larger point size (or de-emphasise it with a smaller point size). But compared to bold or italic, or all caps, point size offers a subtle range of adjustments. So use the subtlety. In print, if your text is set at 11 point, you don’t need to go all the way to 14 point for emphasis. Start with a small increase—say, half a point—and move up in half-point increments until you get the emphasis you need. It’ll be less than you think.
Fonts originally consisted of a set of moveable type letterpunches purchased from a type foundry. The names for many of the historically popular fonts have become English language shorthand to refer to the corresponding point sizes usually available for letterpress printing.
So why do we use Pt sizes?
-It's
partly historic, but also because points are a quite useful for how we perceive
type size. You can say 8 point is small, 12 point is medium, 24 point is big.
In metric that would be 2.8mm, 4.2mm and 8.4mm, millimeters are too big for
type size changes.-Points aren't the only way that type is measured anyway, its a printing convention. Type is often measured in pixels on a computer. When type gets large (like on a poster) people start to use mm or cm, points are impractical at that scale.
-For mobile design points are better (required, in the case of iOS) because they are resolution independent. 12 point type will be 12 pixels on a 72dpi screen such as a desktop, but 24 pixels on an Apple retina screen. Points let you specify this once in the design process.
3. Serif vs San serif
Normally the following rules are
followed (or believed to be true):
Use serif for printed work
Serif
fonts are usually easier to read in printed works than sans-serif fonts.
This
is because the serif make the individual letters more distinctive and easier
for our brains to recognise quickly. Without the serif, the brain has to spend
longer identifying the letter because the shape is less distinctive.
The
commonly used convention for printed work is to use a serif font for the body
of the work. A sans-serif font is often used for headings, table text and
captions.
Use sans serif for online work
An
important exception must be made for the web. Printed works generally have a
resolution of at least 1,000 dots per inch; whereas, computer monitors are
typically around 100 dots per inch. Even Apple's much vaunted retina display is
only around 300 dots per inch — much lower than print.
This
lower resolution can make small serif characters harder to read than the
equivalent sans-serif characters because of their more complex shapes.
However
there are arguments supporting both sides:
Arguments in favour of
serif typefaces
Serifs
are used to guide the horizontal “flow” of the eyes; The lack of serifs is said
to contribute to a vertical stress in sans serifs, which is supposed to compete
with the horizontal flow of reading ( De Lange et al., 1993 )
These are the most
common claims when trying to make a case for the utility of serifs. However,
serifs cannot in any way be said to “guide the eye”. In 1878 Professor Emile
Javal of the University of Paris established that the eyes did not move along a
line of text in one smooth sweep but in a series of quick jerks which he called
saccadic movements. Unfortunately many graphic designers and typographers
continue to use this rationale for the existence of serifs, due to a lack of
communication and cooperation with the research community.
Serifs
are used to increase spacing between letters and words to aid legibility
Serifs are not
required to control letter and word spacing – in fact, serifs would be woefully
inadequate for this purpose. In traditional letterpress systems, spacing is
achieved with small pieces of metal inserted between the letters, and by the
spacing between the letter form and the edge of the print block. Spacing is
even easier to manipulate with modern computerised typesetting equipment.
Serifs are used to
increase contrast (and irregularity) between different letters to improve identification
Well established
research has shown that whole words can be recognised just as quickly as
letters during an eye fixation and that single letters can be identified
quicker when embedded in a word. Such a ‘Word superiority effect’ would
indicate that serifs are not needed for distinguishing between single letters.
Serifs
are used to bind characters into cohesive ‘word wholes’
The simple Gestalt
created by spaces between words would be enough to bind letters into ‘wholes’.
Furthermore, other features such as character ascenders and descenders should
have a much greater effect on word recognition than serifs.
Readers
prefer body text set in serif typefaces, so they must be more legible
Many studies
conducted in the past did indeed find a preference for serif typefaces.
However, Tinker commented that perceived legibility was due to a great extent
to familiarity with the typeface. 40 years ago sans serif typefaces were not as
common as they are now, and if these studies were repeated, it would not be surprising
to find completely different results. Indeed, more recent studies have shown
that computer users prefer sans serif typefaces for body text online.
What is important to
bear in mind is that in almost all legibility studies, reader preference or perceived
legibility tends to be inconsistent with user performance.
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Arguments in favour of
sans serif typefaces
Serifs
are just an historical artefact
This could be true to
a great extent, especially since claims attempting to justify serifs in
retrospect have been less than convincing.
Many researchers
attribute the origin of serifs to the Romans, some claiming that “Roman
masons … terminated each stroke in a slab of stone with a serif to correct the
uneven appearance made by their tools” Others state that “design by
brush before execution in stone gave rise to … tapering serifs at the terminals
of many strokes”.
What ever their
origin, serifs have been around for so long that perceived legibility is very
likely to have been affected by familiarity – readers tend to rate as more
legible the typefaces they are most used to.
Sans serif are better
on the web
Although studies of
screen reading show no difference between reading from screen and from paper,
there could be some validity to this argument.
When typefaces are
digitised for use on computers, the letter forms have to fit within a
relatively small pixel grid, often leading to what are called the “jaggies”.
Many web professionals such as graphic designers claim that this relatively low
resolution cannot render effectively enough the fine finishing strokes of serif
typefaces, and that sans serif typefaces lend themselves more naturally to being
digitised, and come out cleaner and thus more legible.
However, this has not
been borne out by recent evidence that shows no difference in legibility
between serif and sans serif font on the web.
Sans
serif is better at small sizes. Sans serif fonts survive reproduction and
smearing because of their simple forms
Some research has
shown that serifs may actually become visual noise at very small sizes,
detracting from the main body shape of the letter form. However, this has not
been confirmed in tests of continuous reading. Other factors such as stroke
thickness, counter size and x-height are likely to have a far greater effect in
preserving the overall identity of a letter form whether it be through smearing
or size reduction.
Sans
serif is better for children learning to read
Books produced for
children are often printed with sans serif text as teachers claim that the
simplicity of the letter shapes makes them more recognisable. But studies
with child participants have found no difference in their ability to read
either style of typeface.
4. The History of Type
The fifteenth century was a pivotal time for
written communication. Manuscripts were treasured possessions which rarely
appeared outside monasteries or the courts of royalty. The written word was
reserved for the privileged few. In fact, less than one-tenth of the European
population could read.
In 1445, in Mainz, Germany, Johann Gutenberg
changed the course of the written word. While Gutenberg is often credited with
inventing both the printing press and metal type, he, in fact, did neither.
Printing had been practiced for several hundred years in China and for at least
several decades in Europe. Type had been cast successfully, albeit crudely,
several years earlier in the Netherlands. What Johann Gutenberg did do was make
these technologies practical.
He perfected a workable system of moveable
type, developing an ingenious process employing a separate matrix, or mold, for
each alphabet character, from which metal types could be hand-cast in great
quantities. These types could then be assembled into a page of text, and
imprinted to paper via special inks and a printing press of his own design. For
the first time, a technical system of mass production was applied to
publishing.
The next 50 years witnessed an explosion of
printing throughout Europe and, by the year 1500, more than 10 million copies
of nearly 3500 works were printed and distributed. An unprecedented diffusion
of technical and social knowledge spread throughout the Western world and the
education of the masses had begun.
5. The Anatomy of type
Ascender The lowercase character stroke which extends above
the x-height.
Bar The horizontal stroke on
the characters ‘A’, ‘H’, ‘T’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘t’.
Baseline The imaginary horizontal line
to which the body, or main component, of characters are aligned.
Bowl The curved stroke which
surrounds a counter.
Bracket
Contrast
The amount of variation in
between thick and thin strokes.
Counter
The empty space inside the body stroke.
Descender. The lowercase character
stroke which extends below the baseline.
Loop The bottom part of the
lowercase roman ‘g’.
Sans serif From the French, meaning
“without serif”. A typeface which has no serifs.Sans serif typefaces are
typically uniform in stroke width.
Serif Tapered
corners on the ends of the main stroke. Serifs originated with the chiseled
guides made by ancient stonecutters as they lettered monuments. Some serif
designs may also be traced back to characteristics of hand calligraphy. Note
that serif type is typically thick and thin in stroke weight.
Shoulder
The part of a curved stroke coming from the stem.
Stem A stroke which is vertical
or diagonal.
Stress The direction
in which a curved stroke changes weight.
Terminal The end of a stroke which does not terminate in a
serif.
X-height The height of the body,
minus ascenders and descenders, which is equal to the height of the lowercase
‘x’.
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