Graphic Design 101 - How Not to Suck

Presented by Phoebe | July 17, 2014

Typography

Is the art and technique of arranging type for a design.

Typefaces vs. Fonts

Back in fifteenth century, printers hand-set type, they had to pull actual metal/wood letters, numbers, and symbols out

This collection of characters was called a “font”

Typeface: a set of fonts, or a “font family”

• Contains all the variations of that font.

• All designed with the same basic design principles

A font is like a song, a typeface is an album.

In Brief

HOW NOT TO SUCKand act like a designer

10 Typographic

Crimes

What’s wrong with this?

1. Stretch or Squished Type• Good font should be left alone.

• Never change the proportions!

• No stretch, compress or distort !

Helvetica Bold

Helvetica got stretched unproportionally

Helvetica Condensed Bold

Signal: Such as bold, italic, underline, all caps, etc that used to emphasize important segment of text.

Don’t get crazy and keep it simple: Choose only 1-2.

2. Too Much Signals

Orphan: Alone word at the end of a paragraph.

3. No Orphans & Widows

Widow: Is a word or part of a sentence that ends at the bottom of a paragraph and carries over onto the top of the next paragraph or next page.

Image: www.saxoprint.co.uk/blog/typography-tips/

BAD, because:

• Create unaesthetic gaps in the text

• Harder to read

• Create imbalance of the positive and negative space.

Image: http://opusdesign.us/typographic-widows-orphans/

Leading: Also called “Line spacing.” Space between lines of type.

4. Bad Leading

Image: www.saxoprint.co.uk/blog/typography-tips/

Leading: Some programs call it “Character spacing”

Space between letters.

5. Bad Tracking

Rag: Refers to the irregular vertical margin of a block of type.

6. Bad Rags

Image: www.aisleone.net/2009/design/8-ways-to-improve-your-typography/

Image: www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/how-to-fix-your-rags-widows-and-orphans/

River: Large unsightly gaps within the paragraph

7. Create Rives by Using Justified Type

7.

7. Hyphenation ladder• No more than 2 hyphenations in a row, • No fewer than three characters before and after a hyphen.• No hyphenation should be used in that matter in less than 3

sentences.

No hyphenation should be used in that matter in less than 3 sentences.

9. Blindly following the trend.

Sans Serif: Typefaces that does not have the small projecting features called “serifs” at the end of strokes. ( Sans means without in French.)

10. Legibility & Readability

Question?