Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Bailey Ciombor- Chapter 4



                                                                       Legibility

            Legibility is a subject in typography that requires careful study and constant evaluation. How this is achieved is by controlling the qualities and attributes inherent in typography that makes type readable. When it comes to distinguishing characteristics of letters, there is a major need for attention. There are twenty-six letters, and each has evolved over the centuries to a unique place within the system of signs. Even though weight, size, proportion, and elaboration can change, the basic structure of each letterform must stay constant. There are four groups that these letters can be clustered into and those are the vertical, curved, a combination of vertical and curved, or oblique.
            Spatial harmony and legibility has very critical aspects into understanding the triadic relationship of type size, line length, and interline spacing. All three of these can improve the legibility no matter what in a letterform. All of these revolve around visibility, pleasant rhythm, and comparative judgments. Next, weight, or thickness, of the strokes is something that must be examined to ensure the legibility. This provides contrast and clarity between typographic page elements such as titles, headlines, and subheads.
            Another aspect to clarity is legibility and color. Incorporating color affects legibility and when working with this, it is important to achieve an appropriate contrast between type and its background. The most legible color contrast is definitely black type on a white background, but other options can improve the relative phenomenon. Colors possess characteristics of hue, value, and saturation, and when combining color and type,, balancing these properties is a critical legibility concern.
            Another proponent is justified and unjustified typography. The word spacing, ragged text alignment, and the breaking of lines all can determine the legibility of a certain type. Paragraphs and indentations help clarify content, and increase reader comprehension.  The clear separation of paragraphs in a body of text has an overall consensus as to accomplishing this goal. 

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