Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley
July 2009 Issue
May 30, 2009<\/p>\n
Font Fanatic: Putting the Best Face Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n How words look on a page or screen can be as important as what they state.<\/p>\n Consider corporate logos and signs you see around town. The lettering conveys everything from how “serious” the message is to associations with specific eras. Personally, I love the clean precision of Art Deco lettering, which brings to mind elegance, the Roaring 20s, and a young Hollywood.<\/p>\n However, no matter how much I might like Art Deco, I would not prepare a business letter using the typefaces Broadway, Plaza, or Desdemona. These might look great on Agatha Christie or F. Scott Fitzgerald novel covers, but they are inappropriate for a letter to my university department chair.<\/p>\n Having a few hundred fonts installed on your computer does not mean you should try to use them all, especially within the same document. I’ve seen the results of font addiction and they aren’t attractive.<\/p>\n I admit to being a typographic snob who still wishes “font” and “face” hadn’t been made synonymous by computer software. At the same time, I’m glad technology has rendered such distinctions pointless.<\/p>\n My fascination with letterforms dates back to high school, when I first encountered various typesetting technologies. I was fortunate enough to see one of the last hot-metal type machines in use at specialized print shop in Exeter. A “font” was a specific typeface at a given size, weight, and effect. You couldn’t change fonts without a lot of effort. Search YouTube for “Linotype” to see how far we have come.<\/p>\n Desktop publishing has revolutionized how we create documents. We have evolved from blurry dot-matrix printers to high-resolution color laser printers. Selecting fonts is a matter of a drop-down menu in most applications. Microsoft and Apple include two dozen fonts with their basic operating systems, not counting the fonts shipped with Microsoft Office or Apple’s iLife and iWork suites.<\/p>\n Most computers have at least Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New installed. Apple and Microsoft include the Monotype foundry’s version of these fonts. Yes, Times New Roman is a revised design of Times Roman, both of which were designed for London newspapers. These slight differences can change the position of words in a document, making it almost essential to match fonts if you want to share documents between computers.<\/p>\n Students frequently send me documents created using fonts I do not have installed. While Calibri and Cambria are nice fonts included with newer versions of Microsoft Office, the reality is that the university computers don’t have these fonts installed. As a result, student papers appear in Courier New.<\/p>\n The lesson: if you share files, use common fonts. Otherwise, you never know what the results might be. Some applications choose the closest font name, alphabetically. I’ve had Zapfino, a beautiful script font, turn into Zapf Dingbats. The result was a page with seemingly random symbols where headings had been.<\/p>\n It is wise to use Times New Roman or a similar typeface for the main text of printed business documents. These faces are called “serif” type because the letterforms include extra strokes known as serifs. The extra lines are decorative, but they also help differentiate letters. We are conditioned to associate “serious” texts, like books, with serif typefaces.<\/p>\n Typefaces like Arial or Helvetica are known as “sans serif,” meaning they lack the decorative strokes. The reason many applications now default to sans serif fonts is that they are easier to display on a screen. Serif text can appear blurry on small screens, like those of cell phones. If a document is meant primarily for screen, a sans serif font might be a good choice for the text.<\/p>\n If you don’t plan to share a file with others, or if you are certain every computer will have the same design application and fonts installed, I suggest experimenting with templates, themes, and style sheets. These professional designs are helpful starting points.<\/p>\n Despite owning thousands of commercial fonts, I like traditional typefaces. I often use Caslon, Garamond, or Palatino for text. For headings, I like Gill Sans and Myriad Pro.<\/p>\n Ornamental typefaces, also known as “display” faces because they were created for advertisements and posters, should be used sparingly. Ornamental fonts are best suited for short lines, not long blocks of text.<\/p>\n Always ask yourself: What message does this font send? Design is often a matter of first impressions.<\/p>\n There is a difference between “professional” fonts and most free or shareware fonts. Commercial foundries create fonts with full character sets, carefully tested letter spacing, and special letter combinations known as ligatures.<\/p>\n For great fonts at reasonable prices:<\/p>\n 1) If you use Microsoft Windows, CorelDRAW! ships with more than 1000 professional fonts, primarily from Bitstream and Letraset. The same fonts are marketed by Bitstream as a $500 collection.<\/p>\n 2) Nova Development’s Art Explosion, available for Windows and Apple OS X, includes 1800 AGFA and ITC fonts on a supplementary CD. The same font collection sells for $4000, while Art Explosion is under $100 at many retailers.<\/p>\n Web Sites for Font Fans:<\/p>\n Ascender:<\/strong> Any stroke that rises above the lowercase letter x.<\/p>\n Descender:<\/strong> Any stroke that is below the baseline of most letters. Lowercase g, j, q, and y have descending tails.<\/p>\n Kerning:<\/strong> The space between pairs of letters. Some letters need to “overlap” or there are odd visual gaps within words.<\/p>\n Leading:<\/strong> The space between lines of text. Thin strips of lead used to separate lines.<\/p>\n Ligature:<\/strong> A special combination of letters, printed as a single character.<\/p>\n Points:<\/strong> Fonts are measured in points. There are approximately 72 points per inch.<\/p>\n Sans Serif:<\/strong> Literally, without serifs. A smooth letterform, with minimal adornments.<\/p>\n Serif:<\/strong> A decorative stroke added to a basic letterform. Typefaces with serifs are called “serif” fonts, after these strokes.<\/p>\n Strokes:<\/strong> The lines and curves in a letterform. The term refers to calligraphy strokes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visalia Direct: Virtual ValleyJuly 2009 IssueMay 30, 2009 Font Fanatic: Putting the Best Face Forward How words look on a page or screen can be…<\/p>\n\n