#type matters

"The Journey" represents the start of my new season of design. I'm taking on typography and lettering as my main focus! Excited to share more!

My 2nd type purchase. First was a year ago a book called Just My Type by Simon Garfield. Type Matters  is written by Jim Williams who is a freelance graphic designer and a senior lecturer in graphics at Staffordshire University.  This book stands true to what it promises on its cover: Simple tips for everyday typography, in an efficient and simple fashion. The first thing which strikes you about the books is the size and the cover of the book, modeled on a moleskin dairy. The leather makes the book a lot more warm and approachable, and of course handy.

The book is divided into 3 main sections: 1. Background: talking about history of type is a nutshell 2. Setting headlines and display type 3. Text setting 

Few things from the book which i was not aware of before, and was delighted to find out:

  Ink traps: Being cautious when setting a typeface with ink traps at display sizes. Ink traps were an early development in typeface design to compensate for printing on porous papers, to allow for ink bleeding into paper when printing and to keep a clean edge to the type at small text sizes. (the text is from the book) 

When setting at large display sizes typefaces that are designed for text composition,  the dots (titles) above the lowercase 'i' and 'j' can appear too high. Consider lowering them to a more visually attractive height. (from the book)

With some typefaces, in text and display settings, the symbol @ can appear too high, so it is worth considering lowering it to make it appear more central in the x-height. (from the book) 

Simple tips for enhancing everyday typography

The art of typography has historically been a form led by specially trained professionals, well-versed in the workings of setting and design. With the technological revolution the population at large holds the reins to the world of type, often muddling the more specific aspects of design. For the less informed, Jim Williams provides Type Matters!, an introduction to the finer points of type. Designed to offer basic instructions to amateurs, the book succeeds in conveying esoteric typesetting knowledge by way of example.

While the details of letter placement and typeface design are typically left to professionals, nearly everyone is affected by type's subtle messaging, consciously or not. "Typefaces are like clothes for language: they come in thousands of different styles, and all say something different about the wearer," writes Williams. "It is therefore important to select the most appropriate typeface for the message."

The book's soft leather cover opens to a series of well-designed pages, the knowledge of type embedded in lines of examples. Introductory concepts like weight and letter spacing are paired with lesser-known bits to demonstrate what ultimately constitutes an elegantly executed page, as well as what gets in the way. The world of type also offers a delightfully strange lexicon, so you'll be armed with intimate knowledge of jittles, picas, nuts, ligatures, ink traps, muttons and kerning.

The beginner's reference ultimately aims to improve the appearance of the documents that represent us. Whether it be a carefully executed resume or a quickly jotted email, the appearance of words on a page is a subliminal indicator of the person who wrote them.