Letters Remain

Tag: typography

  • Hard-to-Read Fonts Improve Learning

    Much has been written on the positive aspects of cognitive fluency (in terms of typography, accents, and almost everything else), but a recent study (pdf, doi) suggests that the opposite (cognitive disfluency) could lead to better learning. The theory is that harder-to-process material requires “deeper processing” and that this deeper processing leads to superior memory performance. Earlier…

  • Educational Typography Ebooks

    I’ve only recently taken a look at font retailer FontShop‘s collection of educational typography ebooks despite having the site bookmarked for months. It’s a wonderful (yet small) collection, currently consisting of these five books: Meet Your Type: A Field Guide to Typography The Typographer’s Glossary: Common Type Terminology Erik Spiekermann’s Typo Tips: Seven Rules for Better…

  • Typography, Pronunciation and Cognitive Fluency

    How easy something is to read and understand significantly affects how we perceive it in terms of its risk, beauty, difficulty, credibility and truthfulness. Factors that influence this cognitive fluency include typography (typeface choice, contrast, etc.), ease of pronunciation, familiarity and how much the words rhyme. The cover story of this month’s The Psychologist is…

  • Web Design Research Results

    Some of the more enlightening/worthwhile results from a number of studies on design and usability conducted by Smashing Magazine, found via their otherwise-ordinary 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines article: General design decisions taken by the top 50 blogs (part two): 92% use a fixed width layout with 56% varying the width between 951 and 1000px. For body…

  • Simple Rules for Better Typography

    Some simple rules to follow for improved typography (web or print), from Fred Design: Don’t use too many typefaces (not more than 3). Pay close attention to the hierarchy. No more than 4 font sizes, preferably 3. 8-10pt for body copy (definitely not above 12pt). Use simple, legible typefaces. Keep leading in mind (a little…

  • A Primer in Type Terminology

    David’s lead encapsulates my thoughts on typography perfectly: “I’m fascinated by typography even though I don’t understand a thing about it”. Hopefully this won’t be the case for much longer, as Paul Dean has written a five-part “type terminology tour de force”. From the excellently illustrated Anatomy of a Letterform (part two): They speak the arm (of,…

  • Periodic Table of Typefaces

    The Periodic Table of Typefaces is a fantastic visualisation of 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces available. Grouped by families and classes of typefaces ((sans-)serif, script, glyphic, grotesque, etc.), each ‘element’ lists the designer, the year designed and a ranking of 1 through 100. Sites used to calculate the ranking: The 100…

  • Typography and Design (Two Free Ebooks)

    Getting Real is the undisputed bible of agile software development—a manifesto that can change your view in a single reading. However when it comes to typography and design, the closest I have ever come to such a document was Mark Boulton’s Better Typography presentation. Now there’s a contender: The Vignelli Canon (pdf) I can’t do…