COM344 Electronic Publishing

1
Basic Typography and Graphic Design

• John MacIntyre
• 0191 515 3778
• john.macintyre_at_sunderland.ac.uk

2
Typeface Classifications

• Early typfaces based on hand-written scripts
  (religious)
• Faces evolved with the society of the day - e.g.
  industrial revolution
• Modern digital typefaces give more flexibility in
  design

3
The Structure of Characters
a
f
a. Cap Height b. Serif c. Ascender d.
Descender e. Bowl f. Ball g. Counter h.
Baseline i. Terminal j. Stem k. Hairline
i
h
c
e
b
d
k
g
j
4
Mixing Typefaces

• Dont use too many faces - a typographical
  cocktail never looks right
• Try to stay with two or three faces maximum
• Be wary of using one face which will drown the
  others

5
Techniques for Emphasis

• Different typeface
• Different typesize
• Bold Type
• White Space
• Reverse Out
• Letterspacing
• Underline
• Italics

6
The Three Ws

• WHAT it is
• WHEN it is
• WHERE it is
• Not all three are always
• appropriate!

7
Optical Page Layout

• The optical centre of a page is two-thirds of the
  way down
• The eye scans a page in a series of Z shapes
• You can help the reader by adding signs to the
  page

8
Creating Good Pages

• Use grids to provide symmetry and structure to
  the page
• Use various levels of headings to convey
  information
• Break up text with graphics/rules
• Provide signposts to direct the eye
• Remember white space!

9
Creating Logos

• Must be immediately recognisable
• If lettering is used, must be legible
• Must be adaptable in size and colour

10
Forms

• Keep form design simple
• Use hairline rules where possible
• Using tints can help to identify the parts of the
  form which need to be filled in

11
Colour

• Never colour match using the screen
  representation
• Remember professional print uses the CMYK system
• Different print mediums change the way colour
  prints
• Use colour to convey temperature, mood and meaning

12
Colour Separations

• Four-colour (or full colour) printing uses CMYK
  system
• Each colour printed from a separate plate
• DTP packages can produce the separations for each
  plate
• Can be produced direct to film

13
Colour Overlays

• Separate areas of specified colour - spot
  colour
• Also require separate printing plates
• However, the different plates print in different
  areas of page
• DTP packages can separate out the overlaid colours