WHAT IS TYPOGRAPHY?

                                               ADVERTISING TERM: TYPOGRAPHY

Typography is the design and use of typefaces as a means of communication. It is considered to have begun with Gutenberg and the development of moveable type. But typography has its roots in handwritten letterforms. Typography encompasses everything from calligraphy through digital type and type on Web pages. It also includes type designers who create new letterforms as well as designers and calligraphers who use the letters as part of their designs.

Typography uses typefaces and the whitespace around and through them to create a whole design.

A typographer is a person who designs the form and arrangement of type to make the written word more legible and aesthetically pleasing. Such a person might design a font, or define the point size, kerning, and other characteristics of a typeface.

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space within letters pairs (kerning).

A typographer also makes sure that the right lettering design has been chosen to convey the intended effect of the print. For example newspapers, being a source of news and facts, typically have a straightforward, black print fonts, while on the other hand wedding invitations are more ornate and elegant in accord with the happy occasion they announce. 

Elements of Typography

Typography is more than just the typefaces that are used and the whitespace around them. There are also some other things you should keep in mind when creating a good typographic system:

Hyphenation: Hyphenation is the addition of a hyphen (-) at the end of lines to help prevent problems in readability or make justification look better. Most Web designers ignore hyphenation, as it is not something that is handled well automatically by Web browsers.

Rag: The uneven vertical edge of a block of text is called the rag. When paying attention to typography, you should look at your text blocks as a whole to make sure that the rag is not impacting the design. If the rag is too jagged or uneven it can affect the readability of the text block and make it distracting.

Typeface Anatomy: Each typeface is made up of different elements that distinguish it from other typefaces. Unless you are going to go into type design, Web designers don't generally need to know the specifics of typeface anatomy. But if you're interested, there is a great article on typeface anatomy on the About.com desktop publishing site. The elements you should be aware of are:

• Cap and x-height: This is the height of the capital letters in the typeface and the height of the letter x. It tells you how tall the largest letters will be, and how big most lowercase letters will be.

• Decenders and ascenders: These are the portions of letters that go below and above the x-height line. These typically refer to lowercase letters.

Spacing Around Letters

There are several adjustments that can be made between and around letters that affect typography.

• kerning - space between individual letters

• tracking - space between groups of letters
• leading - space between lines of type
• measure - the length of lines of text
• alignment - placing text to the left, right, centered or justified
• ligatures - letters moved close together so that their anatomies are combined