Dave, I'm teaching our students about how important design is to writing and we've talked about things like having breathing space on the page, short paragraphs, using bullet points and bold subheads but I was wondering if you might be able to give us a few pointers about type phase. I know it's important, and I know it's got something more to do with it than just avoiding Comic Sans, but can you tell us why type and how it's formatted is so important to good writing? >> I'd love to, let me show you. So, well you know in graphic design, Quentin. Type is the message. When we pick a typeface, we actually say more about our message or as much about our message quite often is the content itself. It's interesting what type does. If I were an editor of a small newspaper and I chose this particular typeface for the obituary column, it's horrible. It's totally inappropriate. But this typeface, Baskerville, is perfect. That's a perfect choice for the obituary column in a local newspaper because it's distinguished, it's elegant, it's respectful. If I were to see this stop sign. I'm out driving around the neighborhood and I see this stop sign, I would stop for it. If I were to see this STOP sign, I almost can guarantee I would blow through and maybe go pick up a couple of friends. >> [LAUGH] >> Come back, drive around the block and come back and run it again just for fun. >> [LAUGH] >> Because this type face isn't appropriate to the message. It earns us no authority or respect. This type face for AMBERG ENGINEERING, it makes perfect sense. But if I switch and I go back with marker felt, doesn't work because this company's all about precision and attention to detail. Type is meant to be read. It's not just the look and personality of the typeface. It's actually the function of the typeface that's important as well. Type formatting. Experts tell us that we read type according to the shape of the word, as much as by the individual characters itself. A lot of people don't notice but when we see certain words, they do have certain recognizable shapes. >> Wow. >> Interesting. >> And that's why it's so critically important. Never to set large volumes of copy in all upper case. We've all heard this, don't send an all upper case email. It's a horrible thing to do, and it's totally unreadable. You would never buy a paperback and see that it's set in all upper case, because it's very, very hard to read. >> That's right. >> Type formatting again, talking about >> How do you put type on the page? Do we center it, do we justify left, right, what do we do with it? We never want to center type in large quantities because it's so hard to read. I guess to the end of the line it has no idea where to go to restart on the next line. Do I go here, or here, or here? >> Wow. >> That's why centered type can be a real problem as well. That's why we don't buy paperbacks again and go through page after page of center type. It would be a horrible task to get through it. In my design course, we'll talk about how to format text on the page so that it's both readable and attractive and gives the reader, the audience an open invitation to come in and take a look. Stacked type, another thing I see designers do quite often and they shouldn't is to stack type. Stack type is awful. Just one of those things we can do with formatting that can make us look like we're coming straight out of the 1950s and it actually make it harder to read as well. Type is design. The way a type face is designed and they're all put together with different feelings in mind and different anatomies. But just the way the typeface is designed can affect how it feels on the page and how it invites the reader in also. There's a thing called the x-height, which is the height of the lower case characters. The x-height affects the way a particular type face will look on the screen. Sometimes it's appropriate to use a higher X height sometimes. Not so much and we'll talk about that as well in my design course. >> Fascinating. >> You can see the difference here between Garamond and Century Gothic. A completely different look and feel on that page how that page is laid out. In some cases one is more appropriate than the other. Designers love working with type. This is a book cover for Christopher Hitchens Hitch 22. >> Beautiful. >> Isn't it gorgeous? And it just makes the point that type has form, and that form can be used, not just for readability but as a design element. Here again in an ad for Nike. Nice. >> Yeah. >> Isn't it great and this is one I threw together, just showing that we ca actually use type as part of our design work and still not seriously effect the readability of it. Type is a designers best friend. Designers love type. If you give a designer a job say by the way there is, you can have a lot of type to work with, they go crazy, they love it because we can do such wonderful things with type. Here, a couple of book covers by the author Sam Harris that show, I think, type used as beautifully and as creatively as you could possibly imagine. Here is a beautifully designed resume using type. >> Nice. >> Again, in my course will talk about how to make type attractive, aesthetically pleasing, and readable. It's where those two meet that we're after when we're working with typography. So let's just sum that up. When we're thinking about working with typography. The first thing is use type purposefully. Don't pick a typeface because you think it's cute, or because it happens to be the typeface that everybody's using right now. Pick a type face because it matches your message. Also, remember your reader. First and foremost, when we're designing a reader comes first. We have to make sure all this type we're putting on a page, is understandable. And, think about the form of type. You could actually have fun with it and have it still be readable as well. Nested titles, all sorts of things we can do with the form of type. Can really help make our work more attractive and more readable at the same time. And then again, I can't say this enough, remember your reader. It's so important to do that when we're putting together a design and making sure that people can understand it.
