Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition

Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition

by Robin Williams
Released September 2005
Publisher(s): Peachpit Press
ISBN: 9780321303363

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Book description

Seven years is a long time in any industry, but when it comes to the worlds of design and technology (and particularly the point at which the two merge), it's an eternity! No wonder, then, that you (and about a million other readers!) have been eagerly awaiting this latest update to Robin Williams' enormously popular Non-Designer's series. In these pages, Robin defines the principles that govern type as well as the logic behind them so that you learn not just what looks best but why on your way to creating effective print and Web pages. Each short chapter in this thoroughly updated guide (which includes new coverage of typography in Adobe InDesign and Mac OS X) explores a different type secret or technique, including understanding legibility and readability; tailoring typeface to a particular project; mastering pull quotes and captions; working with spacing, punctuation marks, special characters, fonts, and justification; and more. The nonplatform- and nonsoftware-specific approach and Robin's lively, engaging style make this a must-have for any designer's bookshelf!

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. Introduction
  3. Training your Eye
  4. Review
    1. Anatomy of Type
    2. The X-Height
    3. Points and Picas
  5. A Brief History of Type
    1. Centuries of Type
      1. Oldstyle
      2. Modern
      3. Slab Serif
      4. Sans Serif
      5. Grunge or Distressed Type
      6. Scripts
      7. Decorative
    2. Aldus Manutius
  6. Readability and Legibility
    1. The Art of Readability
      1. What Makes a Typeface Readable?
      2. The Most Readable
        1. Other Factors
      3. Serif vs. Sans Serif
      4. Caps vs. Lowercase
      5. Letter Spacing and Word Spacing
      6. Line Length and Justification
      7. Linespacing (leading)
      8. Reverse Type and Light or Heavy Weights
      9. Italic or Script
      10. Moderation is the Key
    2. The Art of Legibility
      1. What are you saying?
      2. What Makes Type Legible?
      3. Large or Small X-Height
      4. Weight and Proportion
      5. All Caps or Mixing Caps and Lowercase
      6. The Most Legible Type
      7. Temper the Rules with Choice!
  7. Punctuation
    1. Quotation Marks—or Not?
      1. First, a Review of Quotation Marks and Apostrophes
      2. Don’t Embarrass Yourself
      3. Single and Double Prime Marks
      4. Ditto Marks
      5. A Helpful Chart
    2. Hang that Punctuation
      1. When to Hang It
      2. Optical Alignment
      3. Just How do you Hang It?
        1. Software Features
        2. Use an Indent
        3. Reverse the Punctuation
        4. Use hard spaces
        5. Kern Outside the Text Block or Box
    3. Punctuation Style
      1. Quotation Marks
      2. Parentheses
      3. Apostrophes
      4. Ellipsis
      5. Type Style
      6. Em Dashes
      7. En Dashes
      8. Hyphens
    4. Shift that Baseline
      1. Parentheses and Hyphens
      2. Dingbats as Bullets
      3. Initial Caps
      4. Decorative Words
      5. Corrections
      6. How do you do it?
  8. Expert Type
    1. OpenType & Expert Sets
      1. What’s in an OpenType or Expert Set Font?
        1. Small Caps
        2. Oldstyle Figures
        3. Display Type or Titling Caps
        4. Ligatures
        5. Swash Characters
        6. Em Dashes
        7. Ornaments
        8. OpenType in Particular
        9. The Details are Delightful
      2. Expert Set Fonts
      3. OpenType Fonts
        1. OpenType Fonts are Smart
        2. Check Before you Buy
        3. Two Types of OpenType Fonts
        4. Sorry, but . . .
      4. Realities of Using OpenType and Expert Sets
        1. Font Utilities
    2. Small Caps
      1. Where to Use Small Caps
      2. Creating Small Caps on Your Computer
        1. True-Drawn Small Caps
      3. Readability and Legibility of Small Caps
    3. Oldstyle Figures
      1. Monospaced Figures
      2. Proportionally Spaced Figures
    4. Ligatures
      1. Setting Ligatures
      2. The Dotless i
    5. Condensed and Extended Type
      1. Condensed Text Faces
      2. Computer-Drawn vs. True-Drawn
      3. Break the Rules
    6. Display Type
      1. Display vs. Text
      2. Display Type and Body Text
  9. Spacing
    1. Kerning
      1. Kerning
      2. Kerning Metal Type
      3. Letter Spacing
      4. Kerning Pairs
      5. Auto Kerning
      6. Manual Kerning
      7. Range Kerning
      8. Tracking
      9. Kerning Definitions
    2. Linespacing (leading)
      1. Not-so-Average Linespacing
        1. Headlines
        2. All Caps
        3. Sans Serif Text
        4. Special Effects
        5. Watch for These Features
    3. Paragraph Spacing
      1. Paragraph Indents
      2. First Paragraphs are not Indented
      3. Space Between the Paragraphs
    4. Alignment
      1. Left Aligned
      2. Right Aligned
      3. Center Aligned
      4. Justified
      5. Consider Those Phrases
      6. It’s Your Choice
  10. Details
    1. Headlines and Subheads
    2. Pull Quotes
      1. Be Creative!
      2. Guidelines for Pull Quotes
    3. Captions
      1. Choosing a Typeface
      2. Choosing a Type Size and Leading Value
      3. Alignment
      4. Be Consistent
    4. Emphasizing Type
      1. Don’t Do This
        1. Italic, Not Underline
      2. But you can do this
      3. Add Space
      4. Rules and Size Can Be Effective
    5. Line Breaks and Hyphenation
      1. How to Fix Line Breaks
      2. What are Bad Line Breaks?
      3. Headlines
      4. Captions
      5. Hyphenation
  11. Special Effects
    1. Swash Characters
      1. Guidelines for Using Swashes
      2. Don’t Be a Wimp
    2. Initial Caps
      1. Examples of Initial Caps
      2. Automatic Drop Caps
    3. Typographic Color
      1. What Makes “color”?
      2. Why use black-and-white color?
      3. Color as in crayons
    4. Ornaments & Dingbats
      1. Other Uses for Ornaments and Dingbats
    5. Pi & Picture Fonts
      1. Pi Fonts
      2. Pictograph Fonts
      3. Picture Fonts
      4. Rebus Stories
        1. Note!
    6. Don’t be a Wimp!
      1. Extremes
      2. White Space
  12. Typographic Choices
    1. Evocative Typography
      1. Easy Choices
      2. More Difficult Choices
      3. Think it Through
    2. Choose a Typeface
      1. Remember Those Categories of Type?
      2. Questions About Your Project
      3. Quality
      4. Less than Very High Quality
      5. Is There an Extensive Amount of Text to Read?
      6. Are you Cramped for Space, or do You Need to Fill Space?
      7. Is the Purpose of the Piece Rather Sedate, or can the Text be a Little Playful?
        1. A Casual Look Versus a Serious Look
      8. Is the Project to be Skimmed or Really Read?
      9. Evocative Typography
      10. An Exercise and Method
        1. Analyze Your Project
    3. Telltale Signs of Desktop Publishing
      1. Helvetica
      2. Straight Quotes
      3. Double Returns
      4. Two Spaces After Punctuation
      5. Gray Boxes Behind Text
      6. Centered Layouts
      7. Borders Around Everything
      8. Half-Inch Indents
      9. Hyphens or Asterisks for Bullets
      10. Outlined Shadowed Type
      11. Twelve-Point Type and Auto Leading
      12. Underlines in Print
      13. All Caps
      14. Your Score?
    4. Trends in Type, by John Tollett
      1. Most Amazing Trend: Special Effects Type
      2. Most Beautiful Trend: Rendered Type
      3. Most Obvious Trend: Abundance of Font Choices
      4. Most Fun Trend: Breaking the Rules
      5. Most Important Trend: Typographic Independence
      6. Future Trends
  13. Glossary of Type Terms
    1. Typographic Terms
      1. A
      2. B
      3. C
      4. D
      5. E
      6. F
      7. G
      8. H
      9. I
      10. J
      11. K
      12. L
      13. M
      14. N
      15. O
      16. P
      17. Q
      18. R
      19. S
      20. T
      21. U
      22. V
      23. W
      24. X
    2. Robin Williams
  14. Other Info
    1. Listen to Your Eyes
      1. Kerning, Tracking, and Letterspacing in InDesign: Why It’s Important and When to Use It
        1. Auto Kern Pairs, the Lowest Common Denominator
        2. Manual Kerning
        3. Tracking
        4. Paragraph-Specific Letterspacing
        5. Paragraph-Specific Wordspacing
        6. But Wait—There’s More!
        7. Letterspacing Chart for InDesign
    2. Font & Product Vendors
      1. Font Vendors
      2. Font Products
      3. Font Management Utilities
      4. Page Layout Applications
      5. Type Sites
    3. Special Characters
      1. ANSI Chart • Windows
      2. Character Map • Windows
      3. Special Characters • Mac
  15. About the Author
  16. About this Book

Product information

  • Title: Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition
  • Author(s): Robin Williams
  • Release date: September 2005
  • Publisher(s): Peachpit Press
  • ISBN: 9780321303363