Typesetting

Typesetting

(The composition of type)

The word - The letter - The line

Principles:

• Hierarchy: to show the importance of different info, type size, style and weights can be changed to create a hierarchy. Eg title 72pt. sub 36pt. body text 12pt.
• Alignment: Left aligned, justified (messes up tracking), centred & right. Changes neg space of rag.
• The rag: should go in, out, in, out, etc.
• Paragraphs: indented and full line break.
• Leading: distance between the baseline of successive type. -leading can appear cramped, + leading can be hard to read.
• Tracking: Amount of space between letters. Wide tracking gives it a more airy feel, tight tracking can decrease readability.
• Kerning & pairs: adjusting the space between letters.
• Hidden characters: have is turned on to see double spaces etc. Includes space, tab/indent, end of story, paragraph, soft line break.
• Line length: a comfortable line length is between 8 and 12.
• No widows and orphans (unless there is a purpose). Increase tracking to get rid of widows and orphans, or adjust the paragraphing.
• Dashes and space - hyphen (-)is for compound terms and for word division. The others are in the glyphs panel. En (–) dash is to indicate range, distance or time (‘to’ & ‘through’. Em (—) (alt, shift, -) dash is like putting more emphasis on a pause than a comma. Hyphen does not use spacing, en and em do.
• Grids: keeps content organised.
• Baseline grids: text sits along the grid like writing on lined paper.
• Hyphenation: breaking words between lines. Subjective design choice.

Shortcuts for indesign:

• Character window - Window > Type & Tables > Character
• Glyph Window - Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs
• Different size spaces - Type > Insert white space
• Hidden Characters - Type > Show hidden characters
• en dash - alt + - (hyphen)
• em dash - shift+ alt + - (hyphen)

Task:

Typeset and lay out the text of Great Expectations. Communicate a particular idea/concept.

Ideas:

• Referencing that it is chapter 1, page 1, I could put the first line all on one line. Or the first paragraph could have each line on one line. Every time a name is introduced for the first time it could be an orphan.
• Referencing expectations the text could be set so that you are expecting it. The title and chapter number could be at the top so you know what you know what you are about to read but the text is far down the paper, right aligned with the em dash in the gaps.
• Referencing the photographs in the text, the type could be in a grid that looks like film.
• Tere could be clear rivers running through the text referencing the rivers in the text.
• Paragraphs could be in short sections in a grid to appear like freckles. Or to also reference freckles some of the words in the first paragraph could be dotted about like freckles.

Experiments with typesetting:

The first design uses em dashes to create a long anticipating pause to the text. This references the term ‘expectations’ used in the title, as you expect the text throughout the pauses. The text is also aligned right and low down to the bottom of the page to create more of a gap to further create anticipation. Although the design has reasoning, the look of it styleistickly is bad.

The second design uses tracking to keep all text on one line. This is to reference the text being the first page of the first chapter. This is ineffective as it is unreadable and styleistickly looks bad.

This design isolates each name as it is first introduced. This is done using the alignment and leading, making the alignment further in so it is under the word in the last sentence, and the leading is increased. This design is an improvement from the others.

This last design has all text aligned to the center of the page. This is because photographs are mentioned in the text so this vaguely resembles a strip of film photographs using the paragraphing. The G of ‘great’ is much larger, covering some of the title in order to emphasis it being great. Also ‘existence’ in the second paragraph is isolated using leading. This is to emphasize the meaning of the book.

Own book type setting:

Using a block of text that may be used for the book, different type setting ideas are applied.

Firstly, each sentence is aligned differently to represent the different perspectives that the book is from. Left is the player, right is the peep in the game and middle is the book itself. The entire text has low leading in order to create an overall shape that is rectangular, like a screen. Every ‘CTRL’ and ‘ESC’ is isolated by creating a new paragraph and indented using alignment. ‘Real’ has wide tracking to create an airy feel and imply a lie. ‘Your thoughts are fake’ has a slash through it to imply they are made to appear real or that they are real.