Design Practice: December 2013

**ADD WEB HIERARCHIES

Type Hierarchies

During this designs principles session, as a class we arranged text on a page to see what fonts, and typefaces are more readable and legible. We were instructed to investigate the relationship of the typographic hierarchy and hierarchy of information. When doing this, we need to record; the relationship between the hierarchy of information and hierarchy of type, the number of typefaces used, the number of fonts used, the relationship between type and image and the relationship between editorial content and commercial content.

First of all we chose a page from a magazine so we could deconstruct the typographic hierarchies. We cut out the headings and body copy and rearranged them onto a piece of paper in the order that we saw them first when the page was a whole. I analysed the page, and started to think about which stood out first. After studying the page, piece by piece I started to cut out which stood out first, I let my eye follow in this order, not necessarily from the top of the page to the bottom.

First of all I removed this heading, even though it is not at the top of the page, it is the first thing that stands out. The type is not very bold, yet it is the most readable.

This then lead me to look at the heading above the 'peas, sir, I want some more.' The type of this is bolder, and is at the top of the page, however it doesn't stand out before the other heading. Up to this point it is the typographical hierarchy, as it is just type to be shown.

At the end of this task when completed in class, the class as a whole had produced new hierarchies where headings and subheadings were the most prominent therefore they were placed at the top of the hierarchy whereas the body copy was the thing seen less noticeable. The hierarchy was not in size order, it was simply the order of body copy and images that were seen most noticeable displayed in a vertical format.

Magazine 1: