Creative Cut: The Power of Type

The words you’re reading right now are printed in the New Baskerville typeface, at 11 points, with 12-point leading (spacing between lines). This point size and leading are considered just right for readability.

Cyrus Highsmith, a type designer at the Font Bureau in Boston, says New Baskerville is popular because its “transitional” look blends the loopy traces of handwriting with the cold geometry of modern type styles.

This font is a revival of a typeface originally drawn by English typesetter John Baskerville in the 18th century. Highsmith says Baskerville’s type looked crisper due to the paper he used. Some critics thought the font was too sharp and that people might go blind reading it, an extreme point on the spectrum of readers’ sensory reactions to typeface.

Many direct marketing experts advocate the other extreme: neutrality of type in the service of content.

Somewhere in between exists a double standard for “display” type and “text” type. The former, usually employed for headlines and short bursts, often permits more creative leeway. The latter is most associated with body copy, or paragraphs, where the eye must not be taxed and reading ease is the goal.

Headlines vs. Body Copy

Serif is the curlicue which creates a “harmony” of one letter with the next, recalling the idiosyncratic shape and feel of handwriting.

Sans (without) serif works fine for “shouting” a message, as in headlines, kickers and pull quotes, say the direct marketing gurus; but for “soft-spoken” body copy, serif is the way to go. Not having loops makes sans serif letters a uniform size, which translates to a harsher read.

Copy aficionada and creative director for Awards.com, Laurie Goodman, says the “little ‘tails’ at the ends of letters … create a little ‘cushion’ of white space around each letter, giving the eyes a rest.”

When sans serif type is used in headlines and subheads, it balances your serif text, instructs Goodman, giving a boost in readability to each.

Headlines and body copy (and serif and sans serif text) have different purposes, but both affect buying. That’s why readers’ comfort levels and visual associations are so important.

What are people used to reading? In North America, Highsmith says, we’re used to serif text faces. In Germany and Switzerland, sans serif has a more established history.

Some design-watchers feel that editorial or quasi-editorial text printed without serifs blurs the line between ad and edit—so accustomed is the reader’s eye to associating sans serif copy with display advertising.

Aesthetics

Technically, the difference between legibility and readability, says Highsmith, is akin to the difference between “a sprint and a marathon.”

He defines legibility, which is a function of type design, as the capacity to recognize a character on its own. For instance, the sans serif font Helvetica is very legible; you won’t confuse its lowercase with anything else in that typeface. “However, it’s monotonous; there’s no difference between the thicks and thins. Your eye gets bored. So it doesn’t have good readability,” Highsmith notes.

Readability involves how you set the type, and means you can read continuous pages on and on without difficulty. Baskerville (what you’re reading now) has “rhythm”: the horizontal strokes are a different thickness than the verticals. It also shows more differences between round and straight characters. That’s why Baskerville is more readable than Helvetica. But they’re both legible.

Needle in a Haystack?

A vast field of typeface possibilities exists to choose from, tens of thousands by some estimates. (Note: The word font originally referred to type size, but now is used interchangeably with typeface.) Some recently designed fonts even come in both sans serif and serif, making them more versatile.

The catalogers consulted for this Creative Cut (see boxes) stick to one “house” font, and use variations from its family—i.e. one font in bold, italic, roman—or an occasional different typeface to contrast short bursts with body copy.

The rules (a word that’s anathema to designers!) for mixing typefaces vary, but experts say a little conflict is good, since it causes the text to “pop” or grab readers’ attention.

Apparel catalogs, such as Neiman Marcus, and those where avant-garde is not a dirty word, tend to break the rules by using sans serif or even more experimental fonts throughout. As always, one must consider the catalog’s buyer demographics and the trade-off between readability and stylish panaché.

“The best thing you can do when trying to decide on a typeface is take the time to try several options,” reckons Goodman. To judge side-by-side, she says, “Take a sample spread of your catalog and produce it entirely with photos in place. Don’t judge typefaces based on how they look on a blank, white sheet of paper. The overall design and look of your catalog page is what’s communicating with the customer.”

She recommends that catalogers: 1) review typeface options in complete pages or spreads, making sure the type family works for both headlines and captions, at multiple sizes; and 2) make sure the face doesn’t include “some funky numbers or punctuation marks.”

The Font Bureau’s Highsmith says that technical factors, such as printing technology and paper grade, can also influence font selection. “For example, newspapers are printed on rough, cheap paper on presses that run very fast, [so] the impression they make on the paper is not great. There are typefaces designed with those limitations in mind, like Poynter Old Style or Linotype Excelsior.

“Something printed on a nice press on glossy high-quality paper … can be set in typefaces that are more delicate,” Highsmith says.

Type Usage Tips

Typeface developer and consultant Ilene Strizver of Westport, CT, adds that beyond just typeface styles, other typographical factors, such as leading, point size and line length, can influence readability. “Certain ways of setting type (too small, too much leading) discourage the reader from wanting to go on,” she notes.

Todd Chandler of Chandler Design, Somis, CA, a 30-year veteran of direct mail and catalog creative, says he believes—along with most type-savvy observers—that Helvetica (a sans serif type) and Times (a serif) are the most common fonts used in catalogs. He notes that this is due in part to their status as defaults in many desktop publishing programs.

Chandler advises that for a catalog’s body copy, you should “Work with a font that’s more open, like New Century Schoolbook. Get a font that’s as round as possible, but one where you do not need to drop a font size.”

Other helpful tips for dealing with type:

• Hyphenation is not good in headlines. Editorially, it is necessary, but again, people’s eyes don’t read it with much comfort.

• White-space backgrounds behind dark text are harsh, Chandler says. Why not try a light-color tint instead?

• With phone numbers, always put area codes in parentheses; 10 numbers all in a row without a break is mildly taxing on the eye.

• Don’t blow up typefaces without using bold, recommends Strizver.

• Reversing out type (printing the letters in white against a darker background) should be done selectively in short bursts, experts agree. If you do it, don’t use a typeface with a lot of “thins,” because they get washed out in print. “You’re printing [on a] web [press], so even if it’s one quarter dot off on registration on one of the plates, the copy will fill in,” Chandler says. He takes a stand against reversing type, because of subconscious aversion on the part of readers: “People will not read reverse type.”

With sans serif or reversed type, the bottom-line question is not whether you can read it, but whether you and your eyes honestly want to.

Pat Fromberger, senior art director for Vermont Country Store’s Voice of the Mountains catalog, has worked both with company founder Vrest Orton and his son, Lyman. Orton Senior had very strong convictions about the sans serif/serif difference, and even wrote an article on the subject for National Review. “Vrest thought Times Roman was the most readable type, and insisted we use it; we’ve used it ever since,” as body copy at 9.5 points, Fromberger says. “Besides readability, we also feel it conveys the old-fashioned feel of the catalog.” VCS hasn’t even used sans serif in its headlines—these also are Times, in semi-bold italic.

The only places Times isn’t used are in special product or page headings. After trying a variety of fonts, currently Fromberger uses Goudy for those heads, because it “seems compatible with Times.” The only other font VCS uses fairly consistently, she continues, is Helvetica, primarily in picture callouts and with images (see above), because it stands out against Times. “This is a copy-heavy catalog that people do read,” Fromberger says. “So we need something easy [for customers] to scan through.”

Laurie Goodman, creative director for Awards.com, says her company chose its fonts for readability and ease of conveying information. “We use Arial bold and black for headlines, Arial italic for callouts and Arial regular for price charts. For body copy we use the serif face Utopia.”

While Awards.com uses these same fonts where possible on its Web site for brand continuity, says Goodman, “In HTML, fonts are extremely limited and there is no opportunity to finesse typography. For type to look really great online, you need to create headlines and important type as graphics (GIFs or jpegs usually). This way you can have complete control over sizing, spacing, kerning, colors, etc.”

For text pulled from a database, such as product copy, Goodman continues, one must use HTML fonts. “So keep it large enough to be readable, and don’t reverse type out of colors unless absolutely necessary and [unless] the type is still large enough to be readable.”

Helen Bartley, vice president of advertising (responsible for Web, retail and catalog) at The Territory Ahead, says the typeface Goudy “in all its incarnations” has been the signature typeface for the catalog since inception. “It’s dignified. It’s not a nostalgic catalog, but we wanted an elegant typeface, so we picked an older one.” While serif typefaces are considered more readable, Bartley points out that serifs have their drawbacks deriving from the printing and readability issues with “thicks and thins.” Serif is not always so readable when run small, especially when it’s “knocked out” (reversed)— “You’ll have better luck with a sans serif in those cases.” The “postcards” (see above) in Territory Ahead’s Indian Summer catalog employ the Cohin typeface because the black-and-white photos and captions are considered editorial content—set apart from the rest of the body copy. The catalog issue’s title, “The Lost Coast,” is printed in a font developed from the actual handwriting of artist Edward Hopper (not shown). For the Isabella Bird catalog, also published by Territory Ahead, the Optima font is used.