Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type

by Ina Saltz

Overview

A deep understanding of letterforms and knowledge of their effective use can only be obtained with constant observation and experimentation; it evolves over a lifetime of design practice and study. This comprehensive guide is intended to advance the progress of designers seeking to deepen their typographic expertise. Typography Essentials is a practical, hands-on resource to distill, organize, and compartmentalize—but not to oversimplify—the many complex issues surrounding the effective use of typography. It is for designers of every medium in which type plays a major role, and is organized and designed to make the process enjoyable and entertaining, as well as instructional.

New in paperback, this book is divided into four easy-to-use sections: The Letter, The Word, The Paragraph, and The Page. Each of the 100 principles has an explanation and examples representing the principle in action.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592537402
Publisher:	Rockport Publishers
Publication date:	09/01/2011
Series:	Design Essentials Series
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Ina Saltz is an art director, designer, writer, photographer and professor (of Electronic Design and Multimedia at The City College of New York) whose areas of expertise are typography and magazine design. For over 22 years, Ina was an editorial design director at Time Magazine (International Editions), Worth Magazine, and other magazines including Golf Magazine, Golf for Women Magazine, and Worldbusiness Magazine. Ina frequently lectures on topics related to magazine design and typography, including Toronto, Atlanta, Denver, Moscow, Amsterdam and Calgary.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE LETTER

1 Using letter as form

2 Using counter spaces as form

3 Letterform details

4 Emotional content implied by the text

5 Historical connotation

6 Considering the medium

7 Honoring dignity

8 The handmade solution

9 Being expressive

10 Staying neutral

11 Considering background contrast

12 Emphasis using weight

13 Emphasis using contrasting weights

14 Emphasis using size

15 Emphasis using contrasting sizes

16 Proper smart quotes

17 The hyphen, the en dash, and the em dash

18 High contrast in reverse

19 Extreme scaling

20 Heavy flourishes

21 Thinking like a typesetter

22 Using display versions

23 Using numbers

24 Dingbats and pictograms

25 Theory of Relativity I

THE WORD

26 A “bad” typeface?

27 Typographic abominations

28 Hierarchy using position

29 Hierarchy using size

30 Hierarchy using weight

31 Hierarchy using color

32 Hierarchy using contrast

33 Hierarchy using orientation

34 Hierarchy using special effects

35 To kern or not to kern

36 Type as image

37 Three-dimensional type

38 Repetition

39 Deconstructed type

40 Vertical stacking

41 See the shape

42 Using cases

43 The rule of three typefaces

44 Mixing many typefaces

45 Mixing type using contrast, weight, or color

46 Mixing typefaces using historical compatibility

47 Familiarity breeds legibility

48 Properly weighted small caps and fractions

49 Using the right type

50 Theory of Relativity II

THE PARAGRAPH

51 Invisible typography

52 Highly evident typography

53 Less is more

54 More is more

55 Letter spacing and word spacing

56 Hyphenation and justification

57 Tracking guidelines

58 The “color” of the text type

59 Considering typographic mass

60 Pattern, gradation, and texture

61 Basic leading principles

62 Optimum line lengths

63 Increasing leading

64 Tightly stacked lines

65 Indicating paragraphs

66 Initial caps and drop caps

67 Opening paragraphs

68 Orphans and widows

69 “Rivers” of space

70 Eschew decorative type

71 Celebrate decorative type

72 Text overlapping images

73 Text overlapping text

74 The text block effect

75 Theory of Relativity III

THE PAGE

76 Legibility, legibility, legibility

77 Legibility taking a back seat

78 Limiting typefaces

79 One type family

80 Six necessary typefaces

81 A need for every typeface

82 Text typefaces versus display typefaces

83 Organized entry points

84 Systematizing hierarchy

85 Using justified type

86 Using flush-left, rag-right type

87 Using centered, asymmetrical, and flush-right type

88 The multicolumn text grid

89 The uneven text grid

90 Typographic “furniture”

91 Decks, callouts, and pull quotes

92 The “birth and death” of the text

93 Chaos versus order

94 Commentary, marginalia, and alternate languages

95 Tables and charts

96 Navigational devices

97 Margins and gutters

98 Framing the text

99 Floating in space

100 Theory of Relativity IV

CONTRIBUTORS INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS