Related Papers
Typographic Features of Text: Outcomes from Research and Practice
Typographic Features of Text: Outcomes from Research and Practice
2014 •
Maria dos Santos Lonsdale
This paper presents a comprehensive review of literature on the legibility of printed text in order to provide informed guidance on the design and preparation of typographic materials. To this end, experimental findings are taken into account, as well as the perspective of typographers, graphic designers, and authors. First, the typographic features of text are reviewed and illustrated individually to identify all the features that specifically characterise text layouts. It is emphasized, however, that the various typographic features should be selected in relation to each other, and that it is the combination and manipulation of all these typographic features as a group that makes the text legible. Studies are then reviewed and illustrated on the typographic structure of text as a whole. This information will prove useful to anyone involved in the development of typographic materials, including typographic and graphic designers, teachers and students
Slanted Magazine
Typographic experiments: A method between research and practice
2022 •
Prof. Dr. Nicholas Qyll
Discussions of the Internet as a laboratory or ‘World Wide Lab’ (Schmidgen et al. 2004) assume a networked digital space housing a variety of publicly accessible experiments. Actually, the results of extensive creative experiments with fonts and typography are there to be found, especially in the social media. Alongside the fact that this essay attempts to hone the critical view of creative researchers as to what a typographic experiment actually involves, which artefacts must be understood as their results and which parameters can be relevant in the execution, one thing could read between the lines throughout: All designers are by definition researchers as well! Albeit more or less pronounced, more or less conscious, but particularly when they not only publish the results of their design-based, typographic experiments on the Internet as the ‘World Wide Lab’, but when they let the design (research) community partake in their knowledge of how – in other words, by what path (methodos) – they reached these results. Basic parameters overview: downloads.slanted.de/Slanted-Magazine/Experimental-Type/Typographic-Experiments-Dr-Nicholas-Qyll-Fig_3.pdf
9. Applying psychological theory to typography: is how we perceive letterforms special?
2014 •
Mary Dyson
Towards quantification of the effects of typographic variation on readability
1998 •
Kathryn Hargreaves
Typographic wisdom holds that regular spacing and well-formed character shapes enhance readability. Are these components quantifiable in ways consistent with human vision theory? We construct texts using irregular spacings and distorted letterforms to verify and compare their effects. Our preliminary data indicate that shape distortion has more effect than spacing distortion. Beginning with classic work of Tinker [16], there has been an effort to verify and quantify the rather strong traditions of typographers regarding what makes text the most readable. In recent years, reading and vision researchers have attempted to examine the relative roles of visual and cognitive components of reading [13, 12, 4] and to explicitly examine typographic factors rigorously [1, 9]. Typographers hold that fixed-width fonts are more difficult to read than proportional-width ones, but the opposite was argued by Arditi et al. [1]. However, in [9] we suggested that poor letter shape explained their data...
The influence of serifs on 'h' and 'i': useful knowledge from design-led scientific research’
Mary Dyson
The typographical naivety of much scientific legibility research has caused designers to question the value of the research and the results. Examining the reasons underlying this questioning, the paper discusses the importance of designers being more accepting of scientific findings, and why legibility investigations have value. To demonstrate how typographic knowledge can be incorporated into the design of studies to increase their validity, the paper reports on a new investigation into the role of serifs when viewed at a distance. The experiment looks into the identification of the lowercase letters ‘j’, ‘i’, ‘l’, ‘b’, ‘h’, ‘n’, ‘u’, and ‘a’ in isolation. All of the letters originate in the same typeface and are presented in one version with serifs and one version without serifs. Although the experiment found no overall legibility difference between the sans serif and the serif versions, the study showed that letters with serifs placed on the vertical extremes were more legible at...
British Journal of Educational Technology
Unjustified Experiments in Typographical Research and Instructional Design
1973 •
James Hartley
Relearning Typography: Introducing a Cross-Disciplinary Typographic Framework
2004 •
Joyce Yee
Current theory and vocabulary used to describe typographic practice and scholarship are based on a historically print-derived framework. As yet, no new paradigm has emerged to address the divergent path that screen-based typography is taking from its traditional print medium. Screen-based typography is becoming as common and widely used as its print counterpart. It is now timely to re-evaluate current typographic references and practices under these environments, which introduces a new visual language and form. This paper describes a study that utilises a combination of empirical methods and action research projects to form a new conceptual framework for the understanding and practice of screen-based typography. This study is part of a Doctoral programme in the School of Design at Northumbria University, UK. This paper focuses on the research carried out so far, the methodology used and the findings from two stages of the study. It will end by introducing a tentative cross-disciplinary typographic framework that has been developed to date. This study starts by investigating the relevance of the current framework and evaluates the need for developing an alternate framework through a questionnaire survey. This is followed up by a series of interviews with practitioners working across different disciplines in an effort to identify new media attributes most influential towards the development of screen-based typography. Results of the surveys have shown that understanding and identifying the future role of typography in screen-based media is key to the developmental strategy of this typographic framework. Typography continues to be one of designers’ main tools of communication, regardless of medium. The introduction of the digital medium has not lessened the importance of this role and has in fact increased the reliance on typography to communicate in a clear and straightforward manner. The influence of other disciplines in the development of new media content has also been strongly supported. Conclusions from this initial research points to the fact that the development of a framework must take into account several key factors. These include the impact of technology on the development and application of typography. The framework should also be responsive to the influences of other disciplines in the development of new media content. Influences from film, computer gaming, interactive digital art and hypertext disciplines must be appropriated into the building of a new knowledge base for screen-based typography. Identifying and understanding the influences brought about by other disciplines should be a major consideration in the development of the framework.
Legibility Investigation: Towards controlling typeface variables
Sofie Beier
One frequent problem in legibility investigations is that the tested typefaces vary on too many variables. In an investigation which compares typefaces that – at the same time – vary on letter width, weight, contrast and skeleton, it will be difficult to determine precisely why the findings come out as they do, and the external validity suffers. By applying a method of integrating design practice with academic research, I have designed a new typeface family that addresses this problem of multiple typographical variables. At its current stage, the typeface family Neutral Test has seven members. One is the master typeface; three of the remaining typefaces have one stylistic feature that differs from the master (skeleton, weight, and width); and three have two stylistic features that differ from the master (weight/skeleton, weight/contrast and weight/width). In an experimental investigation where the test material is based on the different members of Neutral Test, the researcher will thus be able to identify the specific stylistic feature that causes a given difference in performance.
The International Journal of Early Childhood Learning
Typography, How Noticeable Is It?
2014 •
Dr Polyxeni (Peggy) Manoli
Citation: Yee, Joyce (2004) A Typographic Dilemma: Reconciling the old with the new using a new cross-disciplinary typographic framework. In: 2nd International Conference on Typography and Visual Communication: Communication and New Technologies
2017 •
Joyce Yee
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