Typography Session 2

The Session
Kerning.
Kerning is the space between to letters. Never kern in, always find the largest negative space in a word, then kern outwards so that the rest of the letters fit.

We went through our own names, and kerned it so that it looked right using the largest negative space and making the rest of the letter work for that. When working out the largest negative gap in the letters, you have to use your imagination a bit and not include all of the negative space. I worked from looking at the space between the 'S' and the 'Y' and used that negative space to kern the rest of my name.

How do you brake a sentence into two lines.

When you are breaking a sentence, you should break it where you do when you say it out loud. When doing this you should always say it out loud as it is a tool used to enable people to read.

Reading Hierarchy.

When trying to make the words read 'One, Two, Three, Four' I decided that I would make them read from left to right, I also want to make them read from bold to light, and larger point size to a smaller point size, this will make people read it this way.

If I close my eyes and open them for a second, I find that I can see the word 'two' the most, this is most likely because it is in the middle of the page, so it draws the eye more.

When only being allowed to use one typeface, one font size and keeping the font regular, try and re arrange the words again, this is something I found harder, I decided to stick to reading from left to right, the first one I thought I would split up the words, the second one I thought that I would make them proportionate but put the word 'one' in the centre of the page as that is what you would read first.

Fitting words on a page.

We were asked to fit all of the body copy onto onto one page, this is what I thought would work best, changed to font to Arial and to 10 point, then putting the body copy into three columns.

When the writing is all on one page in one column, it is hard to read it as it is hard to find where you are suppose to be reading next. Therefore making it into two columns would be easier to read.

This makes the text a lot easier to read.

Although don't take the columns too far because it makes it look daft.

Never use more than 10-12 words on one line! Maximum words!
Never use less than 6 words on one line! Minimum words!

Increasing the leading rather than increasing the point size can sometimes make the text more legible, the right column is easier to read and more approachable and it has been leaded, rather than the left column which is too much and intimidating.