A Survey of Understanding Type: and Other Important Things

INTRODUCTION Good typography is invisible. When you read a magazine, book, or billboard sign, typography effects how you read, even though you might not know why or how it does. This book is meant to help introduce you to some of the basics of typography. It will help you to identify ascenders and descenders—no, they aren’t stairs—what tracking, justification, and leading are, as well as how to avoid widows and orphans (which may not mean what you think it means). In the end, perhaps typography won’t be as invisible as before you picked up this book. We will hold the blank paper to the heat of a lamp and the hidden message in the type will appear. Hopefully you won’t think about typography the same way again. And while there are infinite amounts of things to learn about typography in order to change your typographic eye, you have to start somewhere. So turn the page and let’s start there.