Design Principles, Legibility and Readability

Session 4, legibility and readability:

A typeface is made up of a collection of fonts.

• lower case is easier to read
• serif fonts are easier to read
• different strokes, thinner strokes are easier 
• roman is more readable

Fonts are not designed to operate at the same size 

Consider:

distinction between glyphs

alignment and justification

kerning - dependant on the font

x height - blocking

speed of reading

intricacy

contrast of anatomy

legibility

Counter = the negative space within a letter form (fully partial or enclosed)

Legibility:

The degree to which glyphs in the text are understandable or recognisable based on appearance

Readability:

The ease which text can be read and understood

Kerning:

The space in-between individual letters

Leading:

Refers to the distance between the baselines

Tracking:

Spacing of letter forms 

In class, we looked at how different forms of typeface are more noticeable than others when multiple fonts are used. With the selection of fonts displaying 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' we cut each single word out and rearranged them into the most readable. Each sentence shows a different font per word. 

Before the rearrangement:

After the rearrangement:

From this it was noticed that roman gothic font are the most readable, and the block script fonts are the least readable. Fonts are not designed to operate at the same size, and the majority of the class found the script fonts the hardest to read.