©2010 kaysGraphics. All Rights Reserved.

Have you ever noticed how bad typography is everywhere and good typo is a rare animal? Many people in the design world focus on just about every form of design and neglect improving their typography knowledge. This goes all the way back to the new designers who work on forum signatures (because this is usually a starting point into the design world these days). They focus on learning Photoshop and other programs and almost always have bad typo in their designs. So many people do not even add typo to the design. I think this is a shame because type can be a huge tool in your design arsenal since it is such a rare commodity.

Think about it. How powerful are words? Thinking of that, let’s give some simple questions. Let’s say you have this artwork and you plan on using the word “big”. Would it make more sense to have a large size or small size font? Would it make more sense to have the word in all caps, lowercase or just the first letter caps? Would the word “big” have more of an impact if it used a thin small serif font or a thick, strong san serif font? Understand my point?

What about for web pages? How many designs have you seen that are mediocre simply because the typo is not that appealing? How many simple designs have you seen that look outstanding because the type was well thought out and placed?

I will not call out sites with bad typo because I am sure everyone can find many on their own, but here are some examples of some websites with great typo:

01: Elmwood – Simple design but uses large bold fonts to take place of images and get their message across.

02: Berlin Unlike – Berlin Unlike uses large typo as the section headers but is not overwhelming.

03: A List Apart – A List Apart has based its whole layout and design off typography.  Take a look at the spacing, use of fonts and colors and just how readable the content is. Read the content as well because it will teach a few things on the use of typo in website content.

04: SR28 – SR28 uses serif and san serif fonts while mixing it up with color to help improve the look of the website.

Now let’s look at typography as content fillers for websites. This is simply the text in an article or the “About Us” pages and so forth. There are rules here that should be considered when selecting your formats.

01: Size

Text should not be small. Plain and simple. Anything under 10 or 12 pixels is just wrong and will cause your readers to have a migraine while trying to examine your site. Here is a simple rule, if it causes the average person to squint when reading info on your site, then the text size is too small. Keep in mind that just because you can read an 8 px font on your 120” HD monitor, does not mean the average reader on a 15” laptop is going to be able to read a word.

Point is this: Size does matter!

02: Contrast

This is another thing that can really make someone want to scrap their eyes out with a fork while trying to read something on the web. Someone has a great website template and decide to change it up a bit while changing the font color. Now you have this blue site with neon green text. Ouch. Just because they are bright colors does not mean they should go together for your basic content that you want people to focus on and read.

What is the purpose of text? To read! If you are making it hard to read then something is wrong. Here are some examples that should make this pretty clear.

Do you understand now? Have you ever noticed how books are white pages with black (or close too) text? Hmm, I wonder why? Don’t get me wrong though, this isn’t saying a dark background (like black) with a light color font (like white) is bad. That is fine but it has its place. If you were reading a long article, the dark background begins to hurt your eyes. So by all means, use other then black and white, but make sure the colors you choose will contrast well and don’t go crazy with them.

05: Space

Space is another thing some people have problems with when placing content on a website. Besides the aspect of using space in a design, let’s talk about space with the fonts. Terms like Tracking, Point/Font size and Leading are all terms people should know if they plan to do anything with typography. We already talked about font size so let’s talk about the other two terms mentioned above.

Now you see what tracking can do to your text and your eyes. Which is easier to read? Which do you prefer to read? Which do you think your audience prefers to read? Let’s look at Leading now.

See the progressing line spacing (or Leading)? At the top, everything looks squished and the lines are sitting on top of each other. Further down the paragraph, you the line space increase more and more until hallelujah! You can actually make out the words!

06: Grids

When looking at a website or a print job…or anything really that has some hint at content. Grids are a great way to organize your content. Very helpful for typography because it lets you outline what you want the content to look like. Below is an example from the css-tricks.com website. This will give you an idea on how content can be placed when using the grid system.

You can use these grids for just about everything. For the whole website layout, just about every print job you might take on, etc. This is a very useful tool when it is used. The problem is, not many people use it…

For starters on grids and help educate people about typography (and design in general), I highly recommend the book, Making and Breaking the Grid. This book will help you with design layout by helping you understand the rules of grid-based design and then you can continue on to break the rules.

©2010 kaysGraphics. All Rights Reserved.

It has been a long time. I had host issues in the past and my site files got lost…not to mention everything else that was or has been going on in real life…but I am back. I got my site back up! It is not 100% yet…obviously but I am working on it and soon the design will be complete and I will fill it up with current information and designs.

The graphics world I lived in seemed to dwindle. Most people I knew are AWOL now and the few left I see around off doing their own thing. It is a shame the graphics communities that once were so popular have become almost non-existent. Either way, I am going to do all I can to promote myself…and get involved with those that are still left.

Anyway, above is my latest piece. This was me playing with typography and listening to No Love by Lil Wayne. Enjoy.

©2010 kaysGraphics. All Rights Reserved.

This is officially my first post on my new site. I am now putting together this site. So ya, under construction. Stay tuned…and keep coming back so you can see the updates.

I sure have missed everyone and the design world. I got CS 5, a new laptop, a new design for my site and time to design. I’m back.

Enjoy the lady bug picture I did long ago.

©2010 kaysGraphics. All Rights Reserved.