Monday, April 27, 2009

Type Tips – Proportional Vs Tabular Figures


by Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio

Some numbers add up, and others don’t – no, it’s not your tax return. It’s the difference between proportional and tabular numerals. Know which style you need before you choose a typeface and you’ll reap a big savings in time and effort. Tabular numerals are those where each numeral has the same total character width (that’s the width of the numeral itself plus the white space on both sides). Tabular spacing (also referred to as monospacing) allows numerals to align vertically in tables, financial statements and other columns of figures. Tabular figures are usually lining figures, meaning that they sit on the baseline and have the same height as the capital letters, but on occasion you’ll see old style figures that are tabular. (Old style figures are also called lowercase or non-aligning figures.) On the other hand, display typefaces usually contain proportional figures. The total character widths of these figures are based on the width of the numeral itself plus a small amount of white space around it, so an 8 takes up more width than a 1, for example. Proportional figures can be of the lining or old style variety. In either case, their varying widths give them a more even color and texture, especially around the numeral 1. Proportional figures are not intended for use in charts and tables, since they won’t align in vertical columns. When selecting a font for a project, think about how you’ll be using numerals in your design and make sure the font you choose offers the style of figures you need. While it’s fairly simple to kern a tabular 1 to improve its spacing in a text setting, it’s nearly impossible to kern proportional numerals for vertical alignment in a financial statement. For maximum flexibility, consider using OpenType fonts, which are becoming available from more and more foundries. This new font format often comes with both tabular and proportional figures in both lining and old style varieties, but requires using an application that supports this feature.

Editor’s Note: Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio, is a typographic consultant, designer and writer specializing in all aspects of typographic communication. Read more about typography in her latest literary effort, Type Rules!, published by North Light Books. This article was commissioned and approved by Monotype Imaging Inc.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Type Tips – Open Type


by Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio

If you’re a graphic designer and work on a Macintosh system, chances are you typically use PostScript® Type 1 fonts. If you primarily do web design, or work on a Windows machine, you probably use your share of TrueType fonts. Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages, but now there’s OpenType – offering the best of both worlds, and much more.
New Features OpenType is a kind of superset of Type 1 and TrueType font formats, with added enhancements. It is backward-compatible with applications that support Type 1 and TrueType fonts (including design applications and printer drivers), and you can mix OpenType fonts with other font formats without a problem. OpenType also offers some remarkable new features that require OpenType-compatible applications. (If you’re using the latest version of your operating system and applications, you may already have this capability – check with the manufacturers to be sure.) Three of these new features that are of particular benefit to designers are multi-platform support, expanded character sets and glyph substitution. Read more about the features…

Editor’s Note: Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio, is a typographic consultant, designer and writer specializing in all aspects of typographic communication. Read more about typography in her latest literary effort, Type Rules!, published by North Light Books. This article was commissioned and approved by Monotype Imaging Inc.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Type Tips – Bullets


From FontShop founder Erik Spiekermann

Use bullets or centered points instead of hyphens (-) when you list items. Bullets are part of the standard character set and are located in the following positions:
option-8 (Mac), ALT+0149 (Windows)
· option-shift-9 (Mac), ALT+0183 (Windows)

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I Don't Deserve This

About a month ago, I posted my entry for Illustration Friday. My thumb has just about recovered from the abuse of all the carving it took. It is a lot of work but so worth it. It was a woodblock of an ox and offered the remaining few in trade. One of my IF friends, Susan Sanford of ArtSpark Theatre, took me up on the offer. I just received this amazing piece of art. I'm certain I got the better end of this deal.

As for Illustration Friday itself, hopefully, once tax season, Easter and spring break (whew!) are out of the way I can get back to being a bit more regular and friendly.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Type Tips – Not Justified

From FontShop founder Erik Spiekermann

Avoid flush settings! Most applications create justified text by hideously stretching and squishing words and spaces. Note that it takes many hours of tedious work to typeset justified text that is truly well-proportioned and legible. For this reason, professionals prefer to use ragged-right composition, either with or without hyphenation, depending on how much line-length variation they wish to allow. This gives the text a more harmonious appearance and makes it easier to read, since all wordspaces have the same width.

If you are up for a history lesson on the origins and use of justified typesetting, ITC's U&lc tackles the subject quite well. And please people, there is no such thing at right- or left-justified type!