5 Typography Tips, From a Type Designer’s Point of View

It’s been some time!

To take some time off the oh-so-many huge projects in the making and craft something for you that’s worth your while, today we’ll be talking about some typography tricks that I find helpful and that I haven’t seen anywhere or that I’ve found the information available unsatisfying.

Another plus for you, some of these came out of designing type, i.e., out of looking constantly at type at a micro level.

So, while I’m satisfying my inner megalomaniac, here’s a small post of some things I’ve learned along the way.

1. Contrast Too High?

This one has a story.

While I was waiting for a meeting at We Came From Space, my curiosity won me over and I had a peek at what Joana Sobral, from one of the studios there, Non-Verbal Club, was doing. She was designing a newspaper and was having trouble with the body typeface.

The typeface was Hercules, set in a very small point. The copy was gigantic, the line-spacing as tight as it could be and the thinner parts of the typeface would simply disappear under 8 points (the point size was 7.5 points).

A bit after I told her “that cut clearly wasn’t designed for such a small size”, it hit me: if a really thin stroke was added around the letterform (in that case, it was something like a 0.05 point stroke), it might do the trick. And it did, along with a slight increase in the tracking to compensate the x-axis growth.

You see, typefaces are designed for a specific size (or, at least, they should). When drawing for small sizes, one of the good practises is to decrease contrast. Other things should be also done, but we were looking for a quick and dirty solution on the spot.

The addition of such a thin outline wouldn’t compromise counters, it would just steal some white space (solvable with the loosening of tracking) and rescue those vanished thin lines.

2. x-Height and Weight (Pairing)

“When pairing typefaces, adjust the size to match the x-heights”.

This is a good advice, but incomplete: it does not consider weight. But let me explain this from another perspective:

The lighter the type, the taller it seems; so, bold cuts are designed a bit larger than their lighter counterparts, to compensate for that optical illusion. Have a look:

So, when pairing typefaces, we should do the same as above. As an example, here’s Minion Pro Regular paired with Futura Bold, first with the same exact x-height, and second with the correction:

3. When Possible, Tint Your Black

When I was starting out as a graphic designer, I had the privilege of working with a printing house composed of a handful of old guys. It was a very small print shop with a lot of old-school machines.

But the better part was the people. They had years and years of manual printing, lots of metal type blocks, a letterpress in the corner, a rusty inoperative Linotype in the backyard and a kind and patient heart to deal with my curiosity.

I’ve learned a big deal with them: they gave me free reign to test everything, while suggesting me small alterations to improve the works in hand.

One of the most precious teachings I got from them was to compensate the text colour with the paper colour, which one can easily extrapolate to other mediums.

3.1 Printing

The principle is simple: if you have a coldish background (paper colour), add a bit of a warm colour to your black. If the background is warmer, add a cold colour. Simple.

What it does is that it improves the silhouette of the letters, sharpening the text, by colour contrast.

Be aware that this only works with direct colour; do not use it by mixing multiple colours, use a dedicated spot color for this instead. So, if you’re printing in offset, only use one composite layer for this, or the overprint will make your text blurry.

3.2 The Screens

The same principal can be applied to screens. I never use pure white or pure black on a screen, and it has its perks:

• No White Burning, No Black Staining: I find the pure white/black combo quite aggressive on screens. When I worked in television, I had the opportunity to colour test a lot of television sets (from plasmas to CRTs, LEDs and the state-of-the-art OLEDs, back then), and one of the first things I did was to test how much they could handle the whites without burning, as well as how much black could you go before shutting the pixels completely.
• Better colour harmony: Using a bit of colour to something apparently monotone gives a more tactile, natural-like feel to the design.
• Sharpening of letters: Like in print, it improves the silhouette, adding clarity to the texture.
• Increased viewing angle: Specially in LED and OLED monitors, not burning the whites and keeping the blacks from staining increases the monitors viewing angle, when it comes to text.

4. Tracking and Size

Default values are not sacred.

I’ve read so many times do not use optical kerning! that is pointless to think that you use it. But the truth is: sometimes you have to (to get closer to a desirable result, you should not take it for face value).

Sure, type designers spend a lot of time around metrics and kerning, to the point of being the most usual complaint in our métier. But expecting to fire up a DTP software, pasting a text and choosing a typeface with no further adjustment is naïve.

Back on track: as we discussed in §1, typefaces are designed for a specific size. And apart from other formal considerations and adjustments, tracking and kerning is also size-specific.

If you’ve already read On Legibility – In Typography And Type Design, this isn’t new to you: if we consider a “medium” point size as our size reference, the bigger the size, the tighter the tracking. And as type size shrinks, tracking should grow.

There are two reasons for this: one perceptual, another one technical:

• Perceptual: The actual physical amount of white space varies according to size. It’s easier to recognize a silhouette when it’s big than when it’s small, so adding white space between glyphs when they’re tiny improves that silhouette-reading process. When it’s big, as long as you retain some white space around the letterform, it will still be recognizable without much deciphering.
• Technical: Not everyone has 20/20 vision (ah, those times!), printers aren’t perfect, screens aren’t perfect. These factors, among others, make the tracking issue, specially at small sizes, paramount. Someone who deals with typography, has to think and deal with deterioration and bad reading conditions, whether is low resolution, ink spreading or a bad rasterizer.

As I’ve mentioned in the readability and legibility article, a good test for deterioration is the Gaussian Blur / Threshold one. Have a look:

5. Justification, Hyphenation and Other Fairy Tales

Composing a block of text isn’t a straightforward nor simple task. There are a lot of factors to consider (mediums, resolution, letter size, leading, paragraph navigation, microtypography, rags, widows and more) as well as technical limitations.

Every solution is, therefore, object(piece)-specific.

With that said, you can imagine my expression when I read/hear people say to never justify text, because font metrics are sacred. Or when I bump into a website with justified paragraph text.

Don’t get me wrong: these scenarios are possible to pull off in an impeccable way; I just find disrespectful to the craft of typography and centuries of test-and-try knowledge.

Let’s get to the point: justification is a matter of navigation, more than a matter of style.

5.1 Justified Text

This is a book style classic, because it’s the most versatile and economic way to compose text. And also the hardest.

The beauty of justified text is that, regarding composition, is a very stable form that relates to the page format and, in a glance, it tells you when a paragraph starts and when a paragraph ends.

The problem is (and I believe this is the reason why some people bluntly tell others not to do this) that it takes time, effort and knowledge.

In order to achieve a good texture with justified text you need to pay attention to hyphenation, rivers, line-breaks, optical margin balance, widows and orphans, line number and text flow: all of this means you’ll find yourself doing letter-by-letter micro adjustments very often.

Note: The reason why I strongly discourage justified text on the web is due to the lack of control you have, specially regarding hyphenation. Sure, there’s manual hyphenation in CSS (and the auto feature is a no-go), you never know if the text block width will remain the same, with responsive sites. So, better safe than sorry.

5.2 Side Aligned Text And Rags

The nice thing about left aligned text is that the only thing that you have to control in the texture is your right rag, so the micro editing consists in line breaks. It also makes the text block a bit more dynamic.

But, as you can see in the image above, when scanning through the right margin, you don’t have any clue on where the paragraph ends (and the next one starts), specially if the last line of the paragraph is a longer one. One actually has to find a period and check the identation of the next line to now if one is dealing with a paragraph or not.

A solution for this is to separate each paragraph with a margin, as you can see below:

This has become the de facto standard for the web, but by doing this you loose a third level of hierarchy in the text, where you could divide the paragraphs by groups, for some reason. Sure, you can add marks – and in the web is a good solution, since there’s no constraint about how much vertical space you can use -, but when you have physical constraints, such as in a book (page count, line count), this can become a problem.

In the image above, you can see an example of when a paragraph ends a line above of where it should, if line count is desired to be respected.

6. Conclusion

I hope you found these tips as valuable as I do!

If you did, please be so kind to share it among those you think that will enjoy this too!

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Cheers from Portugal!

Typecooking: Why I Started Doing Daily Exercises

Edit: Since the release of this article, a couple of things changed: the project is now called Typerobics and it has a dedicated microsite!

If you’ve been paying attention to my Facebook or Twitter feeds (or even Behance, but not as much up-to-date), you’ve certainly noticed that I’ve been posting a custom lettered word (almost) daily.

And people have been asking why I started doing so, and this article is about just that.

0. Introduction

OK, first things first: before I tell you why, let me tell you how I ended up doing it.

This is a shameless copy of an idea. Not that it’s something new, since daily exercises are as old as art. But to be clear, Oscar Guerrero Cañizares, the super talented man behind Sumotype Foundry (profile here) has been doing it for a long time; and I’ve been checking his stuff for an equivalent while.

So, if you’re expect an incredibly interesting story, worthy of a novel, here you go: I asked him if I could copy the idea and he said yes.

This introductory story serves two purposes: first of all, check his work, since he’s a skilled type designer and a very nice guy, out of our interactions. Second, Oscar, thank you!

People have also been asking how to I pick the words and how do I get a briefing:

1. Word picking: I use this random word generator, and sometimes, if I get stuck, I cheat with this Scrabble solver. Since I try to keep every exercise down from 40 minutes (unless I’m trying out a style that I’m not comfortable with), so I end up cheating. There you go: I’m human.
2. Briefing: This wildly varies, but I can reduce this to two paths: either I use TypeCooker to randomly generate a briefing (hence the name) or I draw whatever I want to.

With this cleared out, let’s onto the whys, meaning, the reason of this article.

1. Improving Fast vs. Font Development Takes An Awful Long Time

For me, this is the main reason. Font developing is so time consuming (some times it takes years to develop a family [I’ve lost count of how many times I redesigned something, just to get it right]), that it makes the process of exploring letterforms incredibly slow. Sure, you have to make a lot of fonts to tackle and learn about font tech issues, but the drawing process (technically speaking) isn’t that complex at all: Bézier curves, metrics and kerning.

Understanding form and becoming dexterous with it, however, it’s a whole different league; and we only improve that by constantly drawing, specially with variety.

Font developing may stall you from improving your formal skills, since you get to focus on the same thing for ages. In these exercises it’s just a word, not a gazillion glyphs across a myriad of axis, and you’re adapting your brain to formal and spacing skills in a variety of different shapes.

And, when you go back to font development, you get blazing fast at the drawing part (which is most of it, really), since you’ve solved some routine problems while practising, as well as improved your drawing technique.

2. Developing The Inner Do-It-All

This comes in the sequence of the previous section. As type designer or letterer, you want to tame as many styles as you can: you never know what people will ask you, right? Besides, how amazing would it be to sit down and confidently draw anything that comes to mind? Well, that comes with practice.

I try to challenge myself in these exercises. Whether with a style that I’m pretty bad at or by using a stop-watch, for example.

In Portugal, we have an expression for this: derusting the joints. If you’re not used to use your legs, the get rusted. So when you start using them again, it’s hard; but, in time and perseverance, it gets easier and easier – by moving, you scrap the rust out of your joints. Metaphorically, you only develop a skill by doing it over and over again, but you need that initial push before it gets easy.

3. Cheat, cheat, cheat

Oh, the pleasure of cheating! Lazy people, rejoice!

Joking aside, cheating is actually very useful. While developing a font family, the perfectionism light is on all the time. And this puts you (well, at least me) in a mental state where you’re over-concerned about… everything. Apart from taking some of the pleasure away, this hyper-focus refrains you from thinking out of the box, and so, from actually finding a simpler solution to the problem.

And the repetition involved in a huge amount of glyphs contributes to this.

4. Sharing Dumbness Is A Good Way To Get Schooled

Of course, these quick drawings have flaws. And when you post what you’ve done, people will pinpoint those flaws. Scary? Nope. Great? You bet.

By sharing with others, people will guide you on where to look and, with luck, what to do. I like to think that whatever I’m having a problem with, someone has already solved it; so sharing and letting people see what you do, even if it’s just an exercise, you’re actually putting yourself available to learn and improve, by the help of others.

As you saw above (and if you checked the Youtube channel) I also did some process videos (more will come, keep an eye out!). Aside from the compliments (these are great, don’t get me wrong), the constructive critiques are actually the best part, even if people think that you’re being dumb.

Well, if they think so, they’re probably right. But this can be a good thing, since a lot of people who think you’re dumb try to prove that you’re being dumb, which means that they’ll explain a easier way to do the same thing.

5. The Survival Of The Fittest Approach

Everyday, I get a started font.

One of the most frequent questions about my work is how I get ideas for typefaces. Well, I start a lot of them and, eventually, I end up wanting to develop one of the doodles/sketches into a full family.

Let’s say that 95% (or more) of what I’ve started will never end up as a ready-to-ship typeface. At the same time, I’ll never end up without something to pursue. And if the desire to finish stuff is the source of longevity, man, I’m immortal.

6. It Builds Your Portfolio, The Fast Way

This one is a no-brainer. In a week, you get 5 to 7 pieces of work to show. In a month, 20 to 30 (or 31. Or 28. Damn you, February!). In a year, 260 to 365. Do I need to say more?

7. It Builds Your Audience

The algorithm that sticks Facebook pages’ posts onto subscribers walls is terrible. Well, it’s awesome for Facebook, since I imagine that it’s a splendid source of revenue, but for someone who wants to see his own stuff seen by others, it’s terrible. Unless you pay for exposure, most (and with most I mean 99% of the people) of the people will only see it if they visit your page.

Since I started doing this thing, there are people of consistently come every day to check it out. And don’t get me wrong: they’re not friends of mine on Facebook.

And these people who come everyday (or very often) are your biggest asset in word-of-mouth. Heck, they’re becoming experts about what you do! So, who better to talk about your work?

By the way: guys, you spoil me everyday, I’m so grateful for such dedication, you guys are my motivators! Thank you, from the heart!

Soppiness aside, giving people something they value on a regular basis is the core of building a following. And having a following that respects what you do does several things:

• Keeps you motivated: because you know people expect something from you, while positively reinforcing you with their attention;
• Provide feedback: which, as we discussed in §4, can be a way to learn and develop skills;
• Validates you in the market: a prospecting client can easily find if you have a following. So, having the support of your peers is even better, since other people are actually telling that you know what you’re doing.

8. Prospecting Clients Have A Better Idea Of Your Skills

Simply because you have more to show, more recognition from your peers, in a wide variety of styles and, due to practise, better quality. What client doesn’t want this?

This can even work as a Pantone chart for letterists and type designers, but instead of colors, you get styles. And, the best part, is that you don’t even have to make mockups so your client knows what you’re talking about: it’s already done.

Prospecting clients have an immediate array of styles available to pick from, even before he decides to say a word to you. Win-win.

9. Wrapping Up

As you might have noticed, I’ve became a huge advocate of daily exercises. And although I wrote this through the lens of my own experience, these reasons and practises are extensible to other areas beyond type design and/or lettering.

I hope that you had a good time reading this and, if so, feel free to share the articles in the buttons below!

See you next article!

10 Tips On Kerning And Metrics

This is a brief collection of quick tips on kerning and metrics, as the title may have suggested, that I find valuable.

Although this is intended for Type Design, this article should be valuable for DTP software kerning or Logo Design. Or anything that has to do with letters.

And if you’re wondering what’s the font in the image above, here it is.

All set? Let’s go!

1. Proper Spacing Means Less Kerning

This should be a no-brainer. If your font looks good overall, you’ll have to kern less.

So, try to keep your metrics as consistent as you can, well overshot and only go for kerning when you feel that there’s no other way to space it better. I usually space the letters as I am drawing them, to see if I have a good flow and I might solve some spacing problems in the letter form itself.

2. Classes

Use kerning classes. There.

In case you are wondering why, it’s just way easier to grab a bunch of glyphs of the same group (for example a and all it’s diacritic marks), assigning them to the same kerning class and then kerning them than doing it pair-by-pair. Even if you have to deal with some collisions, it’s a lot less work.

3. Kern First, Ligatures Afterwards

As much as kerning is tedious and I love to push it to the end of the production, it’s not a bad idea to do the ligatures after you’ve already kerned at least the alphabet: in that way, you avoid having to correct bad spacing to your ligatures, saving you some time and some eyeballing doubts.

4. Mirroring

Mirror, mirror, mirror. Horizontal and vertically. At the same time and with just one axis mirrored.

The goal here is to step yourself away from text as more as you can, and trying to see “pure” forms. It lets you approach the design as an abstract composition, making it easier to balance your spacing.

And this is not just for kerning and spacing: it helps you to get a good flow in your design and it’s easier to perceive not-so-obvious design flaws.

Also, I’ve recently found that I can read fluently upside down or when the text is mirrored: it’s like having a super-power!

5. Straight Neighbours, Round Neighbours

Before going for text-string kerning (I use Just Another Foundy‘s Test Text Generator, by the way), I start doing kerning with straight and round neighbours (and/or a mix of both) in both sides of the pair I’m working on.

For example, if I’m kerning A/V, I’ll have something like HHAVHH OOAVOO HOHAVHOH. And I just noticed that the font I’m using here is not properly kerned. See? It works.

6. Pay Attention To The Space Width

This one is often neglected.

Most of the times, if you space your sidebearings right while your drawing, usually you don’t have to kern the space glyph at all. So, you have three options:

1. Set your space width and do your metrics accordingly;
2. Do your metrics and set the space width accordingly;
3. Ping-pong between the two.

In my opinion, go for option number 3.

Metrics and kerning deal with the space between letters – and that includes the space between words.

7. Blur your eyes

This one is related to §4, the goal is the same than in mirroring.

8. Keep Rhythm Consistent

While kerning, try to keep equal perceived space between the letters. Not mathematical.

All letterforms are different (I like to state the obvious), no there’s no equal solution to every single pair. Even if we think that we shouldn’t kern n/h, I believe that we should check it out anyways. In this example, the top right curve of the n can be creating too much white space, for instance. And it only takes a second.

9. Don’t Forget The Left Side, Jedi

One common thing to forget is to pair lowercase on the left with the uppercase on the right.

While this should be going without saying, when you’re kerning hundreds or thousands of pairs, you can easily forget this. Your end user might want to use your font to write something like YoU’rE sO fLuFfY and you’ve might have just lost a client for not having those pairs kerned. Or saved the world. Who knows!

Anyway, lowercase/uppercase pairs are not uncommon at all, specially in logo design. So keep this one in your to-do list.

10. Trust The Eye

Well, this is the most valuable advice on type and graphic design. It’s very usual to be insecure and trying to find some über-rational process, way or calculus to make you feel that your choices are the best, but hey: type is for the eye, not for the computer.

If what you see feels good, then it’s good. If it doesn’t, then it’s not. It’s that simple. You’ve looked at type your whole life, even before you could read, so just assume that your subconscious is a very well trained machine for eyeballing these things. And the more you try, the better you become at it.

And trust me about this: I’m a optimization geek. I spend a lot of time trying to perfect the way I do things (as you might have noticed while reading my article on Bézier curves) and the better it looks, the less I’m concerned with geometry or space rationalization.

11. Final Thoughts

I wrote this because kerning is one of the things type savvy people complain the most about, but I think it’s not that hard. And yes, after some hours doing it, I also complain about it.

But it doesn’t take as much as you’d might believe it does, time-wise or knowledge-wise.

I hope this has been valuable for you, somehow!

And feel free to drop me a word! Cheers!