WMA TextInContext

Text in Context
Tanya Symons Bredehoft
Principal: Artefact Design

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Hi, I’m Tanya Bredehoft, principal of Artefact Design in Encinitas, CA —— We are an
interpretive design group. —— One of our areas of expertise is exhibit design. —— Artefact
plans and designs interpretive exhibitions and materials for museums, aquariums and zoos,
nature centers, botanical gardens, and a host of other public venues. ∆

Text in Context
Easy on the Eyes
WMA Conference
Palm Springs, California • October 23, 2012


Today, I’ll introduce you to the visual aspects of text comprehension and walk you through
our typical process for creating readable text. ∆


Let’s start with what we’re trying to accomplish... getting people to read your labels and
panels. —— Paul talked about how the brain works —— now let’s illustrate the visual process
of designing for the brain. —— Design, and in this context, text design, has a huge impact
on how or why we read text. —— Attracting Attention ——To be noticed, your panels need to
be saying, HEY LOOK AT ME — by creating visual interest ∆


To attract and sustain attention, your panels need to be laid out following good design
practices. —— The typeface, size, and case must be appropriate to both the subject and the
target audience. —— The contrast of the type color on the background, the spacing of the
letters, and the length of lines of text all need to be optimized so the content is easy for the
brain to process. ∆


With proper attention to the text design, the content will have a better chance of holding the
viewer’s attention long enough for them to become engaged. ∆


——
——


At every level, the relationship between the labels and the content, and the layout of both,
must work together for an engaging experience. ∆

Keys to Success


——

Keys to Success

Attracting Attention Through Visuals


——

Keys to Success

TYPEFACE
TYPE CASE
CONTRAST
LINE LENGTH
LETTER SPACING


—— So —— lets take a look at the important visual elements of text ∆

Keys to Success

TYPEFACE - foundational choice
TYPE CASE
CONTRAST
LINE LENGTH
LETTER SPACING


The ﬁrst step is selecting the typeface or typefaces. —— Form and function. They need to be
attractive to the target audience, include enough variation for heads, bodies, and captions,
and be easy for the brain to process. ∆

Keys to Success

TYPE CASE - establishing a uniform standard
CONTRAST
LINE LENGTH
LETTER SPACING


This is about deﬁning what chunks of type may be in all caps, which will be title caps, and
which will use sentence capitalization. ∆

Keys to Success

CONTRAST - is there enough?
LINE LENGTH
LETTER SPACING


This is about the selection of the color palette. —— Pretty, daring, or staid may be the
stylistic choice. —— Regardless of the style intent, it is vital to evaluate the proposed
combination of colors of type and background to insure the result is easy-to-process
content.—— If there is going to be a problem with the contrast, it can, and should be,
avoided very early in the process.∆

Keys to Success

LINE LENGTH - there is always a lot to say
LETTER SPACING


Too many words is typically a problem rather than too few. It is the brain of the audience that
needs to be accommodated. Long lines of text are more difficult to process than shorter
lines.∆

Keys to Success

LINE LENGTH - there is always a lot to say
LETTER SPACING - room to groove


Being too cramped or too loose makes things difficult to read. Both the vertical and
horizontal space of letters, words, and lines must be addressed. ∆

Keys to Success

TYPEFACE
TYPE CASE
CONTRAST
LINE LENGTH
LETTER SPACING


All design is an iterative process, but taking time to give proper attention to these keys at an
early stage of a project will make it far easier to quickly achieve an engaging result. ∆

Typeface


A typeface is a family or group of related fonts which share the same design, varying only in
weight, slant, character width, etc. ∆

Typeface

Sans Serif


The most basic category of faces is based on whether or not the letters have serifs. —— This
is an example of a san serif face. —— Nothing but the basic stroke of the characters. ∆

Typeface

Serif


Here are some letters in a serifed font. Serifs are the details added to the ends of the strokes
for legibility and/or decoration. ∆

Typeface

Sans Serif


Here are three san serif fonts. —— As you can see, each has qualities, such as the shape of
the C or the E, which set them apart from each other. ∆

Typeface

Serif


Here are three serif fonts. —— As you can see, in addition to each having letter shape
qualities which set them apart, each of these also has a different style of serif. ∆

Typeface

Sans Serif


Here are some familiar san serif fonts. —— Typically, san serif typefaces are good for
headlines and small blocks of text. ∆

Typeface

Serif


Here are some familiar serif fonts. —— Typically, serif typefaces are good for use in larger
blocks of text. While there are certainly exceptions, books, newspapers, and magazines are
traditionally set using serif type. ∆

Typeface

Weights


Here are some familiar fonts in different weights. —— Selecting the proper weight for a
speciﬁc purpose affects both the legibility of your text and the impact you are trying to
achieve. —— Squint your eyes and you can see that weights at both ends of the extremes will
require careful use to be effective.—— —— ∆

Typeface

Style - Italic


Here are the slanted fonts of some familiar typefaces. —— Typically in panel and label
design, slanted fonts should be limited to foreign language words such as scientiﬁc names.
—— You should deﬁnitely avoid using slated fonts in an attempt to emphasize the meaning
of text. ∆

Typeface

Style - Condensed


Here are the condensed fonts of some familiar typefaces. —— Similar to working with font
weights, condensed fonts should be carefully selected and used.—— You should avoid using
condensed or compressed fonts to accommodate an overly-wordy chunk of text on a small
label. ∆

Type Case


Most typefaces that are appropriate for panel and label design have both upper and lower
case characters. ∆

Type Case

Uppercase Title


Title and headings can be effective when set in all upper case letters. ∆

Type Case

Lowercase Title


Title and headings can also be effective when set in what is referred to as lower case title.
—— Typically the ﬁrst letter of every word, except prepositions and conjunctions, are
capitalized. ∆

Type Case

Uppercase Body Copy


—— Pretty much all I have to say about using all caps for body text is ∆

Type Case

Uppercase Body Copy


Don’t do it.

Type Case

A Good Example


Here is some effectively set text. —— The title is Frutiger Bold set in 60 point lowercase title,
left aligned. The body is Garamond Regular set in 36 point, sentence text, left aligned with
ragged right. ---- The peaks and valleys of the upper and lower case letter forms carry the
eye along the lines of text. ∆

Type Size


——

Type Size

Type Heights


How tall should the type be in which block of text. ∆

Type Size

Type Heights


This is a rough guide for appropriate type sizes for a few typical viewing distances —— It is
always a good idea to mock up a few sign types to view in the wild before committing to any
ﬁnal determination of type. ∆

Type Size

Type Hierarchy


This slide shows a mockup of a sign type for testing out in the wild. —— When planning your
design, it’s important to work out how you’re going to identify hierarchy and structure. How
big or how bold should the title/headline be? What about sub-headings, body copy or ﬁgure
captions? —— Remember that using different typefaces can help you create distinctions
between different text levels. You can combine different typefaces to create both classical
and contemporary layouts. —— Avoid using too many typefaces. ——Creating a logical
hierarchy in your designs will make them easier to scan and read. ——
∆

Type Contrast


——

Type Contrast

Type and Background Color


Always take care to provide enough contrast between type and the background color or
image for legibility. Differences between foreground and background colors on labels or
panels should be exaggerated. —— Characters and symbols should contrast with their
background, either dark characters on a light background or light characters on a dark
background. A minimum of 70% contrast is recommended. Always check that your colors
provide adequate contrast when viewed by those who may be color blind. ∆

Type Contrast

Type and Background Color


Placing text over images or patterns forces readers’ eyes to constantly adjust to varying
contrasts. Use screens or place text over solid background with 70% contrast to text. ——

Avoid using red and green against each other as text and background, as persons with red-
green color deﬁciencies (the most common color deﬁciency) are not able to easily distinguish
between the two. ∆

Type Contrast

Reverse Type


Reverse type is light colored type on a darker background. —— It is very popular, but using it
requires careful design or the results will be extremely hard to read. —— Regardless of
mastery of the techniques, you should use reverse type sparingly. ∆

Line Length


——

Line Length

Make it Easy to Read


It's all about making it easy to read —— Since you only have a few seconds to engage the
reader, using appropriate lengths for lines of text makes it easy for them to get there. ∆

Line Length

Word Count


To a reader’s eye, too long or too of short lines can be distracting and exhausting. ——
Maintaining a line length between 45 and 60 characters is optimal, or sentences of about 18
words.----- Margins ﬂush left and ragged right is optimal. This alignment complements the
natural way we read text in western culture. When done correctly, it is one of the biggest
factors in improved readability. ∆

Line Length

Alignment


While text with fully justiﬁed alignment looks really neat and tidy, it can be harder to read
because there are less visual cues for the reader to easily tell the difference between the
termination of a line of text and the end of a sentence. The varied spacing which can appear
between words in order to keep the right edge of the lines of text aligned also hampers quick
reading comprehension. ∆

Line Length

Columns


The intent of this slide is not for you to read the text. Squint your eyes and see the clear
difference between the upper and lower chunks of the example text. —— When columns of
text are used, the gutter, the space between columns, must be wide enough so viewers do
not mistakenly read across columns. ∆

Line Length

Widows and Orphans


These deﬁnitions are from The Chicago Manual of Style ——

Widow
A paragraph-ENDING line that falls at the beginning of the following page/column, thus
separated from the rest of the text.
——
Orphan
A paragraph-OPENING line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page/column.
OR a word, part of a word, or very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph.
Orphans result in too much white space between paragraphs or at the bottom of a page. ∆

Line Length

Widows and Orphans


So, here we have two orphans and a widow. —— Knowing which is an orphan and which is a
widow is far less important than knowing not to leave a single word by its self on a line of
text or to have only the ﬁrst few words of a sentence alone at either the beginning or end of a
column or page separated from the remainder of the sentence in the other column or page. ∆

Line Length

Natural Breaks


When possible, structure line breaks to reﬂect natural language pauses or phrases. Keep
hyphenated words together, and be vigilant against over-hyphenation of multi-syllable
words. Keep $, numbers and related items together. ∆

Letter Spacing


For the sake of this discussion, letter spacing is a general term for both the vertical and
horizontal spacing of letters, words, and lines. ∆

Letter Spacing

Leading


Leading is the space between the lines of type in a body of copy. Leading plays a big role in
readability. Correctly spaced lines make it easier for a reader to follow the type and improves
the overall appearance of the text. Leading also alters typographic color, which is the density
or tone of a composition. —— ∆

Letter Spacing

Leading


The more words you have in a line, the more leading you will need to maintain a pleasurable
reading experience. If you increase word-spacing (the space between each word), you’ll have
to increase leading to improve the readability of the text block.

Optimal leading is about 150–170% of the text height. Increasing leading can reduce the pace
of a piece of text; it can slow the reader by introducing more white space. Too much leading
can cause continuity problems, as the eyes of the reader are required to travel a greater
distance between lines of text. ∆

Letter Spacing

Tracking


Tracking is the amount of space between each character in a group of characters. ——
Tracking can be described as being loose or tight. Loosely tracked text has more space
between each character. In tightly tracked text there is less space between the characters.
——
Tracking has similar guidelines as leading, and all of these best practices are tied to
readability. —— ∆

Letter Spacing

Kerning


Kerning describes the amount of space between two characters. —— There is often confusion
between tracking and kerning. Tracking affects the space between all of the characters in a
group of characters. Kerning is the amount of space between two speciﬁc characters. ——

Kerning is the art of adjusting the space between characters so that the eye can ﬂow easily
across the copy without being distracted by discrepancies. Remember: good typography is
never noticed. ∆

Keys to Success

TYPEFACE
TYPE CASE
CONTRAST
LINE LENGTH
LETTER SPACING


When you have successfully addressed all of these keys, the next step is to create this —— ∆

Type Style Guide


a type style guide. This document is a record of all of the type and color choices made for
every text element of the project. This tool will be a valuable asset to everyone on your team.
——
——
∆


Some of the typography rules I’ve discussed may seem rigid, but they've been proven over
time. —— Study them and develop an understanding of why they work. —— What we have
covered are good starting points. —— Exhibit labels, a web page, electronic IDs, and banners
will all have their own unique objectives and considerations.—— External inﬂuences, such as
the surrounding environmental design, identity guidelines, and client approval, WILL alter
how you approach the type, as well. — Above all, if you design what will be easy for the
visitor to read, you will have done a good job——
∆

Thank You!
“To design is much more than simply to assemble,
to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and
meaning, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to
dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps to amuse.
To design is to transform prose into poetry.”
~ Paul Rand


Thank you for your time and attention. —— Hopefully you’ve learned something interesting
that will help you create more readable text.

WMA TextInContext

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