Designing Type

249 Pages·2020·5.941 MB·English

by  Karen Cheng

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Published in North America by
Yale University Press
302 Temple Street
P.O. Box 209040
New Haven, Connecticut 06520-9040
www.yalebooks.com/art
Copyright © 2005, 2020 Karen Cheng
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections
107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers
for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
This book was designed and produced in 2020 by Laurence King
Publishing Ltd., London.
Designed by Karen Cheng.
Printed in China.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932743
ISBN 978-0-300-24992-7
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designing Type
SECOND EDITION
Karen Cheng
Yale University Press
CONTENTS
07 introduction 4• upper case 6• numbers
64 Proportions 178 Oldstyle and Modern Figures
1• design process 66 O 180 Numbers 0 and 1
72 E 184 Number 2
11 Motivations 74 F, H, I, L, and T 186 Numbers 3 and 5
15 Type Design Briefs 78 C 188 Number 4
19 Drawing Letters 80 G 190 Number 7
21 Constructing Letters 82 S 192 Numbers 6 and 9
22 Case Study 1: Reviving Romanée 86 J 194 Number 8
26 Case Study 2: Workroom Sans 88 D
90 B
92 P and R 7• punctuation
2• variables in type design 96 Q
100 V and A 198 The Evolution of Punctuation
32 Type Terminology 106 U 200 Period, Comma, Colon, and Semicolon
34 Axis and Stress 108 X 202 Quotation Marks and Apostrophe
36 Serifs and Terminals 112 W 204 Question and Exclamation Marks
37 Sans Serif Stroke Endings 116 Y 206 Hyphen and En/Em Dashes
38 x-height 118 M 208 Parentheses, Brackets, and Braces
41 Aperture 120 N 210 @ Sign
42 Weight 122 K 212 Pound Sign (Hashtag/Octothorpe)
44 Stem and Bowl Weights 126 Z 214 Ampersand
46 Balancing Shapes
5• lower case 8• diacritical marks
3• spacing
130 Lowercase Letters 218 Overview of Diacritical Marks
50 Spacing Principles 132 o and l 220 Acute and Grave
52 Spacing and Counters 136 d, q, b, and p 222 Circumflex
54 Setting Sidebearings 140 e and c 224 Umlaut and Diaeresis
57 Testing Spacing 144 n, h, m, and u 226 Tilde
58 Word Space, Numbers, 148 r 228 Cedilla
and Punctuation 150 s 230 Eszett (Sharp S)
60 Kerning 152 a
156 g
160 i and j 234 Appendix 1: Typeface Classification
162 f and t 238 Appendix 2: Type Design Software
166 v, w, and y 240 Appendix 3: Further Reading
170 k 242 Appendix 4: Typefaces and Foundries
172 x and z 246 Index
5
The author, Karen Cheng, at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Photo by Rachel Hobart.
My first experience in type was in graduate school, when I enrolled in a class
Introduction
on letter design taught by Heinz Schenker at the University of Cincinnati. Heinz
was a graduate of the Basel School of Design, where his typography teachers
were the Swiss designers Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder. Basel was infamous
for its rigorous and intensive program of design foundations. As documented
by Manfred Maier in Basic Principles of Design: The Foundation Program at the School
of Design Basel, Switzerland [1980], students spent months simply drawing lines
before they were permitted to advance to letterforms. The philosophy of the pro-
gram emphasized excellence in hand-driven craft; therefore, the curriculum
also included calligraphy and letterpress printing.
Our class had no textbook. Heinz would stand at the chalkboard and draw
each letter, describing the possible variations in old style, Didone, slab serif, and
sans serif typefaces. He used no notes, his letters were beautiful, and he was
never at a loss when questions were asked. We were expected to listen, to copy his
drawings in our sketchbooks, and to subsequently draw our own letterforms in
each of the main typestyles. For the final exam, each student had to exhibit four
boards of painted letterforms. We used Pelican Plaka paint; the creation of the
boards was sometimes referred to as “plaka-torture.”
By the end of the course, I had contracted what designer Erik Spiekermann
calls “Typomania.” Educator and design critic Ellen Lupton describes Typomania
in her introduction to Douglas Thomas’s book, Never Use Futura [2017]:
“Introduced through the innocuous pages of
a college textbook, typography will soon stalk
you everywhere. You cease to find solace
and sustenance at the supermarket; instead
you puzzle over the diamond-shaped tittles
that dot the i’s of the Triscuit logo…
One day you step off the edge of the subway
platform wondering whether the words
‘STAND BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE’ are set
in Akzidenz Grotesk or Helvetica.”
7
There are, perhaps, two major effects of Typomania. First, a desire to under-
stand all the details of letterforms, so that you can better select, combine, and use
type as a designer. The second is, of course, wanting to design your own typeface.
This book attempts to address both of these needs.
The first chapter, Design Process, is expanded in this new edition to more fully
describe the motivations and methods used to create a revival or original typeface.
I have also included two case studies that show student type projects progressing
from initial sketches to final drafts.
The second chapter, Variables in Type Design, provides a foundation for the act-
ivity of designing type. In this second edition I have expanded to discuss in greater
detail how specific modifications to letters (i.e., changes in proportion, aperture,
weight, and so on) affect the legibility, efficiency, and esthetics of a typeface.
The third chapter, Spacing, has been moved forward to facilitate the best prac-
tice of “spacing as you go”—that is, determining the space for each character after
it is drawn, rather than waiting until the end to space all glyphs. This section has
also been expanded with new material.
The remaining chapters divide a typeface into related subsets: capitals, lower-
case letters, numbers, punctuation, and diacritical marks/special characters. In this
second edition, I have placed serifs and sans serifs together rather than separating
them into different sections. I hope this structure allows the relationships between
these typestyles to be more easily seen and understood. The chapter on punctua-
tion and symbols now includes several new glyphs: the hyphen and en / em dashes;
parentheses, brackets and braces; the ampersand; and the now ubiquitous @ and
hashtag / pound (#) signs.
The book closes with an appendix on type classification, and two new appendi-
ces: an overview of type design software, and a listing of all the typefaces shown
in the book, along with their designers and type foundries. Note that the selected
typefaces have expanded greatly from the first edition. While still emphasizing the
classic text typefaces and typestyles, I have also included new, contemporary font
families. In my opinion, analyzing the canonical typefaces that have endured—in
some cases, for centuries—helps designers better understand the craft and logic
that makes for effective type design. However, clearly there are new designers who
are breaking new ground in the profession, and their contributions will lead (and
have already led) to evolution and progress in the field. Not all of the typefaces shown
here will satisfy every reader, but they have been chosen with care to represent a
wide range of design possibilities.
8
DESIGN PROCESS