Chapter 4 Reflection- Katelyn Pesola

Chapter 4 Reflection: Typography Legibility

Chapter 4 was all about legibility in type, which according to the book is widely misunderstood and often neglected by designers. The book mentions that the main three qualities to look for when selecting a typeface in terms of legibility are contrast, simplicity, and proportion.  Originally when I would think about type legibility I would think about in terms of books. But after reading this chapter, I realized that it is also very important think about it whenever you are using type in a design. One thing that I found interesting was the example on page 77 where they showed a word split in half, to represent how it is easier to read the upper halves of words compared reading only the bottom halves of words. This was something that I never really had considered, but from the example it became very clear to me that visually we distinguish letters from the top. In one part of the chapter they talked about how traditionally serif typefaces are more legible because the offer more character definition. This was one part within the reading that I did not agree with, I have found that for me sans serif fonts are much easier to read. I think that this may be part of my generation. We grew up really more sans serif fonts, while it was more common years ago to read and use serif fonts. One thing that I found very helpful throughout the entire chapter was the author’s use of examples. Many times when they were trying to explain different concepts about typography legibility, they would incorporate into the text. This was shown when trying to explain capital verses lowercase letters, line length, weight, color, and justified versus unjustified text. This was really helpful for me to be to see a visual within the text it really helped me understand what they were talking about. This was the same case in the last section of the chapter where they were talking about typographic details. It was helpful to be able to see what the recommended verses the not recommended rules within the terms of typography details.