Stundziaite - Chapter 4 Reflection

Chapter 4 – Legibility – Skai Stundziaite

Chapter 4 of “Typographic Design: Form and Communication” covers the importance of legibility when it comes to text. Designers often overlook the importance of legibility. Since some letters tend to look alike, like f, t, j, designers should consider how they look in context and if they’re well distinguished from the other letters in the text.  The two important factors involving the reading process are word shape and internal pattern.  When these factors are altered, clarity of the word might also be altered, in a good or bad way. Text set in all caps negatively impacts legibility. According to legibility research, text font sizes 9 to 12 are legible from a normal reading distance. When creating long bodies of text, lines should not be too long or too short because this will confuse and tire out the reader, creating inefficient reading (should be around 18 to 24 picas long).  Heavy weighted text font or italicized letters is not preferred by readers because it makes it difficult to read with comprehension.

When it comes to legibility, the size and spacing of the font is not all the matters. It is important to consider the colors of which the designer is working with. Considering what type of surface your text will be printed on or electronically displayed on also impacts legibility of text. Designers need to stray away from default type settings on computers because legibility should be continuously addressed regardless of fads and visual clichés of computer software. Designers should also be aware that because of the current day technology, typefaces might be named as one typeface but differ greatly in style. It is so unbelievable important for designers, typographers or not, to pay attention to detail. It is key to manually kern the letters to assure 100% optical satisfaction. Overall, legibility is KEY to typography. Why write something is no one can read it?