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  1. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
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    San Diego, California
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    387

    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    Yes -- I'd go with some (but not too much) bold or demi-bold light text on a dark background -- for, as Frances said, to catch attention. And, as you mention, to reduce power consumption. Seriously! Last September, the lights went out bigtime here in San Diego one evening. We drove up the coast, town after town, and finally found a bar in San Clemente that had a generator, about 500 thirsty Marines, and my wife and I. This shocking situation, 'retired couple drives 50 miles to get a drink', would NEVER have happened had our area's graphic artists used white or lime-green bold sans-serif fonts on power-saving black backgrounds...

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    ...Granada province, Andalucia, Spain
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    5,302

    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    Quote Originally Posted by jon404 View Post
    This shocking situation, 'retired couple drives 50 miles to get a drink', would NEVER have happened had our area's graphic artists used white or lime-green bold sans-serif fonts on power-saving black backgrounds...
    ...and we'd all be wearing spectacles with lenses the thickness of Coke bottles.
    Bob.
    ** Detailed "Create A Spinning Logo Tutorial" is available in .pdf format for download at this link **
    Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx.

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Liverpool, N.Y.
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    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    I'd advise both of you to leave your joking about power consumption at that.

    Yeah, it might sound funny to design a website with a black background and light text to save energy.

    What about ten million websites? You think that might make a difference?

    Did we have data centers and render farms of the size and power footprint we did even ten years ago?

    Fortunately, I guess, none of us will be alive when something goes critical with our Earth, because we scoffed at the act of one individual decades before.

    It's the cumulative effect of everyone doing something, guys, like littering.

    -g-

  4. #24
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    ...Granada province, Andalucia, Spain
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    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    Lighten up, Gare. Not that I disagree with the thrust of your argument at all, but light text on black is bad for one's eyes, that's the point I'm making, rather than scoffing at energy-saving ideas. I like to think that my family have a lower carbon footprint than most. Sorry to take the thread even further off topic.
    Bob. (edit): Your double line spacing above adds more white space to the page, by the way.
    B.
    Last edited by iamtheblues; 11 May 2012 at 01:15 PM. Reason: addendum
    ** Detailed "Create A Spinning Logo Tutorial" is available in .pdf format for download at this link **
    Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx.

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Sunshine Coast BC, Canada. In a beautiful part of BC's temperate rainforest
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    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    Getting back on topic I have another rule I'd like to discuss. Don't use underlines to emphasize. IMO it is much cleaner and legible to use italics and/or bold to emphasize something.

    thoughts?
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    My current Xara software: Designer Pro 365 12.6

    Good Morning Sunshine.ca | Good Morning Sunshine Online(a weekly humorous publication created with XDP and exported as a web document) | Angelize Online resource shop | My Video Tutorials | My DropBox |
    Autocorrect: It can be your worst enema.

  6. #26

    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    Yes, underlining belongs to typewriters. It has always been preferred to use italics or bold (or bold-italics) for emphasis or italics in reference to say a publication's title.

    Further, in this day and age, underlining can be confused with hyperlinks.

    Take care, Mike

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    Red Boiling Springs TN USA
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    19,208

    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    Manual typewritters were the only alternative to pen, ink and paper when I was in school and afterwards for many years. Back in those ancient days you had three alternatives: underline, single quote marks and double quote marks. I preferred to use the quote marks because you could do that without having to move the carriage back to do underlining.

    There are many alternatives using a computer. Italics and Bold are available and work well. There are typography rules about when to use them for what purpose. Is that what you want to discuss?
    Soquili
    a.k.a. Bill Taylor
    Bill is no longer with us. He died on 10 Dec 2012. We remember him always.
    My TG Album
    Last XaReg update

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Liverpool, N.Y.
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    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    How to emphasize is sort of part and parcel to the message, which naturally has a certain font rendered to express the message.

    Usually, and again, depending on the typeface, the bold member of the family is way too heavy, and usually ugly.

    It's hard to make a general suggestion here, because I don't think there's a universal "Good Taste" rule to be applied here, because sign-making usually has a different set of aesthetics and a different target audience, then, say, a book or magazine article.

    Is a swash considered the same, or close to an underline? I think a good swash, such as Letterhead Fonts offers with LHF Pilsner, is a good way to emphasize something on a cereal box or a poster.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    I think typography, as with any art, depends a lot on composition. You can force a word to have more significance by use of size, color, font, position, and so on.

    -g-

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Sunshine Coast BC, Canada. In a beautiful part of BC's temperate rainforest
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    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    I was thinking more of body text, I dislike underlines in body text. Your example is a good example of using a swash to provide emphasis in an artistic way, which like you said is perfect on a cereal box or a display ad. But a plain underline would not have the same impact.

    If you are reading a page of text whether printed or on screen underlines look messy.

    Bill: we could certainly discuss the rules regarding bold and Italics
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    My current Xara software: Designer Pro 365 12.6

    Good Morning Sunshine.ca | Good Morning Sunshine Online(a weekly humorous publication created with XDP and exported as a web document) | Angelize Online resource shop | My Video Tutorials | My DropBox |
    Autocorrect: It can be your worst enema.

  10. #30
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    Liverpool, NY
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    2,615

    Default Re: simple rules for good typography

    When talking about good typography today, we also need to think about good web typography and web standards.

    On the web there are four html elements that are, by the browsers' default settings, rendered as bold or italic. The text that is marked with these html elements can be styled differently than the brower automatically does- you can change fonts or colors etc using CSS. But most folks never bother to style these elements and just go with what the browser provides.

    Most browsers render <b> or <strong> as bold text and render <em> or <i> text as italic.

    The good folks at the W3 have debated long and hard about what meaning is conveyed when using these tags. An interesting and understandable by mortals, article by the HTML5 Doctor, Oli Studholme , can be found here.

    His article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 share alike license. So here is a small excerpt; but be sure to treat yourself to the whole article where he gives lots of examples.


    • <i> — was italic, now for text in an “alternate voice”, such as transliterated foreign words, technical terms, and typographically italicized text (W3C:Markup, WHATWG)
    • <b> — was bold, now for “stylistically offset” text, such as keywords and typographically emboldened text (W3C:Markup, WHATWG)
    • <em> — was emphasis, now for stress emphasis, i.e., something you’d pronounce differently (W3C:Markup, WHATWG)
    • <strong> — was for stronger emphasis, now for strong importance, basically the same thing (stronger emphasis or importance is now indicated by nesting) (W3C:Markup, WHATWG)
    Barbara Bouton
    TalkGraphics Forum Administrator

    The Xara Xone website developer. | TheBoutons.com

 

 

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