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Typography

Ode to the Typographical Error

The typographical error is a slippery thing and sly;
You can hunt it till you are dizzy, but it somehow it will get by.
'Till the forms are on the press, it is strange how still it keeps,
It shrinks down in a corner, and it never stirs or peeps —
That typographical error, too small for human eyes —
'Till the ink is on the paper, when it grows to mountain size.
The boss, he stares with horror, then he grabs his hair and groans;
The copyreader drops his head upon his hands and moans.
The remainder of the issue may be clean as clean can be,
But the typographical error is the only thing you see.

— Anonymous

Lorem Oopsum: It's Greek to Me
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipscing velit, diam nonmumy eius-mod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquam erat vloupat. Ut enim ad minimim veniami quis nostrud exercitation ullamcoper suscipit laboris
nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum irure dolor in reprehenderit.

Say what?! The babble above is called greeking or dummy copy. This use-
ful, seemingly nonsensical text simulates English and is used by graphic designers to mock up (lay out) pages before the real words are written. To most people, greeking appears to look like Latin and means nothing. Richard McClintock, publication director at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, how-ever, shared some enlightening news — Lorem ipsum is Latin!

Although slightly jumbled, the words are remnants of a passage from de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (a treatise on the theory of ethics that was very popular during the Renaissance). de Finibus 1.10.32, written by Cicero in 45 BC, begins with "Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…," which translates to "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain…"

What is remarkable is that this text has been the graphics industry's standard dummy text ever since some printer in the 1500s took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. Since then it has survived more than four centuries of letter-by-letter resetting and even the giant leap into electronic typesetting. Except for an occasional ing or y thrown in, the text has remained essentially unchanged.

It's ironic that when the then-understood Latin was scrambled, it became incomprehensible as Greek — hence the phrase "it's Greek to me."

Fun With Type
An emoticon — also called a smiley — is one of those little faces and pictures that puntuate much of today's personal e-mail and chatroom dialogue. With just a few keystrokes, you can show that you're happy or annoyed, surprised or bored; or you can hug someone: {Mom}. Lots of websites are devoted to the growing lexicon of emoticons and smileys. Just use your favorite search engine, such as Google or Yahoo, to find them.

Here are some of my personal favorites. You must drop your head sideways to your shoulder to read them. Before you know it, you'll be making up your own!

What is Kerning?
Kerning is the manual adjustment of space between letters. It is typically performed on pairs of letters to fine-tune the character spacing.

A unit of kerning is based on an em unit (an em is equal to the width of the uppercase letter m in the point size of the selected font). An em will get bigger (or smaller) at a constant rate and maintain the same proportions between all the characters. There-fore, kerning is proportional.

Kerning is not the same as tracking. While kerning is used to adjust spacing between particular pairs of letters, tracking controls the visual denseness or openess of a font globally. Depending on the software program, tracking values are usually specified as normal, loose, tight, and very tight. These track settings are built into the software. The program then translates these instruc-tions into units or half units based on the point size of the specific font. To use the tracking value defined by the font manufacturer, select "no track."

"Dr. Language has provided a one-stop cure for all your spelling ills. Here are the 100 words most often misspelled ('misspell' is one of them). Each word has a mnemonic pill with it and, if you swallow it, it will help you to remember how to spell the word. Master the orthography of the words on this page and reduce the time you spend searching dictionaries by 50%."

100 Most Often Mispelled Misspelled Words in English
150 More Often Mispelled Misspelled Words in English
100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English

Letterform Terminology

Typeface Styles
Basically, there are five families of typefaces, each representing a distinct stage
in the development of type. Each style is still widely used today:

1. Old Style (1617)
2. Transitional (1757)
3. Modern (1788)
4. Egyptian (1894)
5. San Serif (1957)

Each of these styles has certain general characteristics in common. These characteristics fall into three categories: variations in stress, variations in thick and thin parts of the stroke, and variations in serifs. These visual aspects are the distinguishing features of the typeface.

1. Old Style
Based on letterforms from the 1500s, the open, round letterforms make this elegant face very readable.

• An oblique stress is evident on curves and diagonal serifs
• Very little contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Heavily bracketed serifs

Garamond, Bembo, and Caslon are examples of Old Style typefaces.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890$.,”-:;!?

2. Transitional
Reflected the graceful fine lines possible with copper engraving in the 17th century.

• Vertical stress
• Increased contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Serifs are less heavily stressed

Baskerville, one of the most pleasant and readable faces, is an example of a Transitional typeface.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890$.,”-:;!?

3. Modern
The relationship to hand-written forms was lost in the late 18th century. Strong vertical stress and high contrast between the thicks and thins impairs horizontal flow and makes reading uncomfortable. For these reasons, this typeface should be well-leaded.

• Strong vertical stress
• Extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Unbracketed serifs

Bodoni is an example of a Modern typeface.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1234567890$.,”-:;!?

4. Egyptian
The Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century caused a demand for speed.
The desire for quickly printed handbills led to the development of these typefaces.

• Lack of emphasis in vertical stress
• Lack of contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Bracketed slab serifs

Clarendon, Cheltenham, and Century Expanded are examples of Eqyptian typefaces.

Sample Currently Not Available

5. San Serif
Developed out of the early stages of Greek and Latin script, this style first appeared
in the 19th century. It is based on even width proportions and carefully conceived even visual weight.

• Emphasis on even visual weight
• Optically even strokes
• No serifs

Helvetica, Futura, and Univers are examples of San Serif typefaces.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890$.,”-:;!?

Click here to read more about Type Families and other interesting and useful
information about fonts, type design, type designers, and technology written by well known industry experts.

Notes on Display Typography
In display typography the list of things to be aware of is about the same,
but with a different emphasis.

Letterspacing
As type sizes become larger the optical space between letters beomes more critical. Subtle adjustments are often required to ensure that things look just right. Some people call this process kerning, others refer to it as letterspacing.

Word Spacing
Condensed typefaces, typefaces with a small x-height, and sans serif typefaces all require tight, optically even word spacing. Reading through three or four words at a single glance is most efficient. Reducing normal word spacing values sometimes aids this process.

Line Spacing
At text sizes, mechanical line space values are fine for producing optical correctness. As type size increases, captital letters, as well as ascending and descending parts
of letters, will have an effect on the reader's perception of line spacing. very often, lines of display type need to be adjusted from mechanical accuracy to optical correctness.

Alignment
Correct centering and alignment of display lines is rarely a mechanical oper-ation. Over half the lowercase alphabet, and many of the capitals, have shapes that call for optical adjustment of lines. The optical, rather than the mechanical, edges of letters should almost always be considerd when aligning or centering display lines.