Type terms again 14/23

Typographic rules and terms

1.Parts of the grid:
1.Margin: The part of the grid that defines the active area of the page and directs the viewer towards the visual elements. They may vary in size depending on the format as well as the type and quantity of content. The margin spce may also be used for the placement of subordinate elements such as folios and footers.
2.Column: The vertical divisions of space that are used to align the visual elements. Single or multiple columns may divide the page, deending on the quantity and complexity of information included. Column widths may also vary according to the function of the design as well as the level of flexibility required by the designer.
3.Alley: The space between pages used as a buffer for the page fold. Basically, it's the gutter between two pages.
4.Module: The spatial areas that support the textual and visual content of the design. Depending on the quantity of the visual elements, the number of active modules may vary from one design to the next.
5.Gutter: (also known as column intervals) are inactive, negative spaces that separate ne column from the next and prevent textual and visual elements from colliding into each other.
6.Folio: fancy word for page number

2.The multicolumn grid has many advantages. Since they contain several spatial intervals, there are endless compositional options. They are flexible and accommodate a range of visual elements. The provide opportunities to create rhythm, drama, movement, and tension through the interaction of visual elements.

3.There is only one space after a period (or any ending punctuation mark for that matter) because most fonts today use proportional characters, so you no longer need extra spaces to separate sentences. The reason why typewriters used two spaces was because they used monospaced characters, so you'd need two spaces to separate the sentences.

4.A character Is a graphic symbol used in writing or printing. It includes everything within a font, from numbers and letters to punctuation and other symbols

5.The optimal characters for a line length can be determined in several ways. You can use the lowercase alphabet with the measure being 1.5 to 2 times this width. More complex is to make a measurement in picas, use the relationship of 2:1 to 2.5:1 to divide the measurement, and then divide by 12 to get the optimum point size. Or you could do this in reverse to the optimum measure size. A third method is to select a specific number of characters per line (not less than 25 not more than 70) which is enough for about six words of six characters per line.

6.The baseline grid is used in design to order and unify the compositional space; the underlying structiure should be apparent without actually being seen. The grid can help the designer to compose visual elements to balance and contrast the shape of the page, while aslo prividing a clear hiearachy and sense of direction and movement.

7.A typographic river is a phenomenon the occurs when the space between words becomes greater than the space between the lines. In this way, your eyes are drawn to these spaces which look like white space 'rivers' flowing down the page between overly spaced words and letters.

8.A clothesline aka flowline aka hangline is the horizontal alignment across the page that draws the viewer's eye naturally from left to right. It gives the page an internal structure. Elements on the pages gravitate towards/”hang” from this line.

9.You can incorporate white space into your design in many ways. You can use different sized margins and/or gutters, or you can just leave some modules on the grid for whitespace. In addition, you should avoid keeping the amount of whitespace completely equal and predictable across the page. This makes your page more static, where as varied whitespace, interacting with the positive space, leads to a much more dynamic and active design.

10. Type color/texture comes from the appearance of blocks of text (usually in smaller fonts) where the leading and kerning are done in such a way that the text block itself looks darker or lighter. This occurs because the more kerning/leading, the more whitespace, and therefore, the more 'gray' the text will look, since there is a balance of whitespace and black text. With less kerning or leading, the whitespace is minimized, giving the text block a more black or darker appearance.

11. X-height is the size of the lowercase 'x' in a font (aka the height of the main body of a lowercase letter, excluding the ascenders and descenders). The x-height determines the point size of the font. Larger x-heights give a darker text color because it takes away whitespace and makes the text body as a whole look more blocky.

12.Tracking is a way to alter the space between characters. Tracking increases the space between characters evenly, regardless of what letters they are.

13.Kerning is another way to alter the space between letters. Kerning increases the space based on the character pairs. For example, there is strong kerning between the V and the A and no kerning between the S and the T. Characters need to be kerned because their unique shapes. For example, rounded parts of letters have extra white space around them. So even if every letter has the same letterspacing, the rounded ones look like they have an unnatural amount of space around them. Common characters that need to be kerned are: WA, VA, ry, AC, FA, Ro, and OA.