338.03 Type Journal by Erin Champ

Page 17

WHY TYPOGRAPHY MATTERS What is Typography? A text is a se­quence of words. A text stays the same no mat­ter how it’s ren­dered., but once it’s printed, typography comes into play.

Who is Typography for? Ty­pog­ra­phy is for the ben­e­fit of the reader, not the writer, but Mmost of the time, writers become readers as well. The most important question here is what does my reader want?

Why Does Typography Matter? Ty­pog­ra­phy mat­ters be­cause it helps con­serve the most valu­able re­source you have as a writer—reader at­ten­tion. Without the reader, the writing is useless; the reader is giving you a gift by reading, and that gift can be taken away easily at any minute. Good typography is a great tool to help keep the reader interested and invested.

What is Good Typography? Good ty­pog­ra­phy re­in­forces the mean­ing of the text; it makes the text more effective. • Good ty­pog­ra­phy is mea­sured by how well it re­in­forces the mean­ing of the text, not by some ab­stract scale of merit. • For a given text, there are many ty­po­graphic so­lu­tions that would be equally good. • Your abil­ity to pro­duce good ty­pog­ra­phy de­pends on how well you un­der­stand the goals of your text.

Where Do the Rules Come From? Bad ty­pog­ra­phy habits get passed along. There is no aca­d­ e­mic ty­pog­ra­phy, nor le­gal ty­pog­ra­phy, nor busi­ness ty­pog­ ra­phy. There is only typography.

Readings

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