Know Your Type
From iStockphoto:
Some of the best designers are also writers, but at the very least we should all be readers. Writing is turning into a crucial role for us; when it’s our job to articulate ideas we have to be clear about what those ideas are and how to best present them. Read the text first, then make recommendations to the author about clarity, pace and length to ensure the text is digestible. All too often designers find themselves rewriting all of the text, stripping out the nonsense and getting at the core ideas. And this becomes absolutely key on the web, where writing has a very utilitarian function and ideas need to be as streamlined as possible. Use lists; break long pieces up with clear headings and subheadings; summarize up front; use emphasis to break homogeny.
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Typefaces change the tone of text, so know what your words are saying and how your typeface emphasizes and articulates the message. Not every typeface is the right choice for every job, but most designers have a handful of favorites that cover just about everything. Analyze older print designs and see how some of the greats still stand up today; good typography has a lot to do with the timelessness of a piece.
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It’s generally a good idea to keep the typeface as is, that is, don’t stretch it, increase or decrease the tracking too much (that’s the space between letters) or apply faux bold or italic (an easy mistake in the Photoshop type palette). While some will argue for strict utility of headlines and body copy, sometimes it’s interesting to break the rules in the interest of the content and readability.
Link to the rest at iStockphoto and thanks to Kelly for the tip.
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>>>Read the text first, then make recommendations to the author about clarity, pace and length to ensure the text is digestible. All too often designers find themselves rewriting all of the text, stripping out the nonsense and getting at the core ideas.
Wow! I thought that stuff was an editors job. Even if this designer is working with non-fiction, he/she/they had better check with the author before changing anything more than the appearance of the words he/she/they is/are working with. I would fire them sooo fast!
In magazine work, designers do give that kind of input. At one point, back when I was a reviews editor, we had a rule not to ever let an article open with a letter “I” because our design started with a drop-cap and the drop-cap “I” was ugly. And designers would comment and make suggestions on titles if a cover spread really wasn’t working because of something that a minor textual fix could help with. Even in books, we sometimes had suggested rules like “H2s a max of 20-24 characters long” because it made the page look better. A sloppy-looking page would come back from production with notes like “please fix” for the editor to cut orphans and widows or tighten text because it would make the page look better. So no, that’s not unusual with professional text design.
(Well, rewriting all the text would be very unusual! But not advising on text changes to improve the design.)
Very, VERY unusual indeed.
“…designers find themselves rewriting all of the text, stripping out the nonsense and getting at the core ideas.”
I have never heard of a graphics designer doing any such thing. It doesn’t make any sense. But then if I were looking for advice on typography, iStockphoto is one of the last places to which I would turn. I wouldn’t even trust their advice on stock photos.
The other thing is that most designers are not even working with “authored” text. This person may well be talking about things like cover copy and advertising copy and maybe brochure text. Stuff thrown together by committee, or written by the intern, or an inexperienced copy writer, or a micromanaging boss.
My old typography teacher kept failing us graphic designers until we got the 3 commandments of interior book design down:
1. Treat text as if you you want someone to read it.
2. If typography design distracts you from the content, you are not doing your job right.
3. Margins are like road signs. Too small and the eyes will loose track of where the next line is.