This is one of six articles I’ve written on the structural elements of graphic design. It is based on my research and intended to give a broad explanation of the basic concept of each element, this one being type. I take no responisbility for their accuracy and encourage discussion on each through the comments system.

The biggest change in typography, after the development of the letterpress and hot metal type, has most likely been the advent of computer technology. This has meant that the tools required to create and set type, which were traditionally expensive and large, are now much more widely available. The role of the typesetter has almost disappeared, and now become the role of the designer.

Because technology to re-create historical typefaces is much more widely available a lot of the designs have been incorrectly converted - making them poor representations of what they once were.

Many typefaces were designed before the computer was even thought of. They were created as metal letterpress faces, designed to work with the constraints of that medium. These typefaces were then converted to digital faces without considering the differences between the offset press and letterpress printing. With the latter, the actual printed letter might appear different to the metal plate, for example if the plate had been designed in such a way to allow for ink to run without distorting the letterform. Therefore, if a typeface was converted to digital directly from these plates, it might not appear as it was originally intended to. This can be seen, for example, in the typeface Bembo, where small features like the feet of the i and l were convex on offset printing and concave on letterpress.

Type can be classified based on the era in which it was designed. Certain styles were common among type designers during certain cultural and art movements. The design of a face has many components. The most obvious component is sans serif versus serif. Other differences include the use of terminals, the modulation of the stroke, the axis, the aperture and the height.

In the 15th century, when movable type was invented, books were all set in the same typeface and same size. This created a certain unity and also allowed other attributes of type to stand out more, such as texture and rhythm. Then in the 16th century a standard set of type sizes were created, each given a name and based on a diatonic scale. The numerical point sizes were 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,16,18,21,24,36,48,60,72 and these sizes remained until the advent of computer technology, which enabled any point size to be achieved accurately. Normal typefaces should be set between 9pt and 14pt. Typefaces with very pronounced or small x-heights may need another size.

Leading is the distance between lines and creates the vertical motion of a page, it is called so because traditionally the typographer would place sticks of lead between lines. The vertical motion should set a rhythm and therefore be based on the typeface size and be kept consistent, or at least to a fixed proportion. In most cases a leading of 120% or more of the type face size should be used - however, if short bursts of copy and to attract attention negative leading may be used, as long as the ascenders and descender do not touch. Leading should be increased where copy is set in capitals or is capitalised.

Kearning is the distance between letter pairs, letterfit. Most well-made digital typefaces come with a kearning table which specifies the distance between every letter combination but they sometimes require tweaking. Ligatures exist for some letter pairs, because the letters actually touch each other to make reading easier, such as fi and fl - but sometimes if letters get to close their reading can be mis-understood.

The page structure should be broken up in to a grid to serve the needs of the different types of content. Page, type size, and the number of words dictate column width. Usually one of these factors is given and outside the design decision. A line of type should be at least 6 words long (35-40 characters). At 10pt, that gives a width of 55-60mm. Three of these columns will fit on an A4 page leaving enough room for a margin. To make the grid more flexible you can leave a column empty, only occasionally bringing text in to it.

Text that is aligned left (ragged right) can have the same word space throughout, but justified text requires the word space to vary, most books are justified. Usually hyphenation is introduced in either scenario, and this needs to be implemented in a controlled way so that some rules and consistency exists.

In typographic terms; legibility is how easy it is to read each letter - how the letter is shaped, and how it differs from other letters. This may make use of certain shapes that are relevant to sub-cultures within a society, or it may cut letters to appear dynamic and alternative.

Readability is the ability of the reader to recognise the words and absorb the message, determined the kearning, leading, line width, margins and other qualities of the text block and page. These can be altered to create different moods, tension or to cater to the medium (budget and audience) the copy will appear on.

It is certainly possible to take a perfectly legible typeface and make it unreadable. The legibility is usually set by the type designer while the setter or designer is responsible for the readability - they can easily effect the readability by setting the type with bad kearning or leading. Joyfull is a popular cheap franchised foot outlet in Japan. Their English logo is made almost unreadable by bad kearning, even though the typeface is legiable. The ll’s are too close and look like an n.

Making an illegible typeface readable is more of a challenge. You could argue that the meaning was derived from other elements, such as colour or space but the type is never going to be truly readable.

Design needs to make use of codes in order to form communication, whether it follows traditional codes or breaks them it is still making an association with certain values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions and practices held by the reader. A lot of these values are not controlled by the reader, but rather by social and cultural beliefs.

A lot of the theory on catagorising codes within visual communication is still very divided, with most theorists holding a different point of view on what codes and sub-codes should be grouped.

The dominant groups of codes found in design, as I see them, are medium, type, space, colour, time, image and sound. These codes can be further broken down in to many sub-codes. I have briefly explained how these codes work below. I use the term reader to describe the audience, whether they are viewing, hearing or reading the communication.

Medium: the medium, or material, that the design is applied to carries just as much, if not more, meaning that the actual design. Readers have associations with specific mediums and set expectations of how they should function, interact with as well as read. Marshall McLuan argued that the medium contained all of the meaning in his book, The medium is the message.

Type, space, colour and time: these all help to make up the structural elements of design and can be altered to bring meaning through historical, genre and social class (etc) assumptions.

Image: image, or photography, is also a structural element but within an image several sub-codes can be found by analysing everything from the subject, to the lighting, to the angle. If the subject is a person then there are codes such as body language, facial expression, posture, physical appearance, etc, that all mean something to the reader.

Sound: although not traditionally associated with graphic design, sound has become a popular element in communication design with the use of motion graphics and multimedia. As with image, sound remains a structural element in the design, but contains many sub-codes. The style, sound, volume, rhythm, beat etc all contain meaning for the reader.

Tony Fry notes that even though products that may be cheap to produce and sell from a monitory point of view (such as many computers) their actual costs are quite high when the pollution, disposal and other associated attributes are taken in to consideration. As Tony states, design is never finished, what ever the design is, it keeps on designing its state of being throughout its life cycle.

A lot of my work is web site design, which to an extent is environmentally friendly, as it’s a method of mass communication that doesn’t require large print runs, and the disposal of the work is simply a matter of deleting it. However even these jobs have sustainability concerns, for example the power source which runs the computer hardware may or may not be from a sustainable source, and the actual computer that hosts the website may have large costs when it comes to pollution and disposal.It is nice to find a design studio that supports sustainability in what they produce.

Thomas Matthews is a relatively small design studio in London that creates some fantastic work and have an established design philosophy that supports sustainability. Design is integrated with community; it shapes the artificial environment and contributes to the well being of humans. It is therefore essential that designers consider sustainable solutions.