LETTERS, WORDS AND SENTENCES do not only communicate by the meaning of them, but also by their structure or by the combination of them. For instance, a bold, heavy and pressed typeface expresses anger, stability and tradition while a script, italic typeface expresses friendship and kindness. Typography is the art of written text. Good typography makes a page of information look appealing to the reader and at the same time it makes it easy to read.

How can we make a page look appealing? First of all we need to know the difference between font families. One of the most used fonts is Times, the font we use right here. It is commonly used due to its readability. Times belongs to the serif family of fonts.

The most important difference between fonts are whether they are serif or sans serif. Sans Serif looks "clean" and works well in titles or shorter text, while Serif is mostly used in body copy. The serifs help the eye to follow the text and help users quickly interpret the chunk size. 

The little flat endings on

 the letters are called a serif.

When working with typography a key concept is contrast. An easily read page directs the reader through the text with type weight, type style, type color, size and form. These are also ways to show organizational hierarchy among different elements. Contrast should never be too slight -- if fonts are too similar you might as well use the same font. Here are some ways to provide contrast:

Using a font's weight (bold or normal) is one of the easiest ways to structure information. A bold font makes good titles and subtitles and it makes a good contrast to other text.

Structure is the way the letter is built. For example the lines Times is built on are both thick and thin. Helvetica, by contrast, has the same thickness on all its lines. A good choice is to use one Serif and one San serif family per document -- they'll always provide a contrasting structure.

The structure may be the same within a font family while the form varies: caps and italics. Caps and italic make the letters look different. Chunks of text written in caps or in italics are more difficult to read, so use it sparingly.

Color can help distinguish different parts of information, but be careful. Too many colors or "wrong" colors can make the text difficult to read. Be careful with background colors and stay with black in body text. The best choice for readability is light yellow background and black text.

• don't mix more than three type styles in one page
• use sans serif in titles and serif in body text
• use italics sparingly
• create contrast
• don't use display fonts or too many colors in body copy
• don't forget that typography is supposed to make the text easier to read
• use light yellow background and black text for best readability
  

Text Design

Ellen Huitfeldt
Student
SDSU Educational Technology