Readability

READABILITY FONTS

• · Benton Modern
• · Bureau Roman
• · Miller Daily
• · Poynter Agate
• · Poynter Gothic
• · Poynter Oldstyle
• · Quiosco

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FB Readability

The Font Bureau, Inc.
50 Melcher Street
Suite #2
Boston MA 02210

Tel: 617.423.8770
Fax: 617.423.8771
info@fontbureau.com

What Makes for Great Readability?

The foundation of transparent readability lies first in the competent drawing of a series by the type designer, a matter of organized regularity in the repetition and variation of strokes and shapes through all the elements that make up a design.

If the font is to read well the “black” strokes and the “white” counter shapes must follow a customary model of variation and repetition. Each stroke and shape should establish the form of a character; none should break the pattern of the paragraph. The spaces between characters must complement the counters, the spaces within characters [fig. 1].

FIG. 1: BLACK STROKES AND WHITE COUNTER SHAPES (IN RED)

The same patterns should be visible in the large and small, light and heavy members of a series [fig. 2], and equally in the condensed and extended fonts. The designer drawing a new series will pause at length to work out the implications of a decision in the initial font, on characters in the complimentary styles.

FIG. 2: REPEATING STROKE AND COUNTER SHAPES FROM REGULAR TO BOLD WEIGHTS

Wordspacing, the balance of the spaces between words with those between characters can have a critical effect on the work of the type designer by those who use the font. Default hyphenation settings in composition software are rarely perfect for a specific font. Careful adjustment to hyphenation and justification settings by the user can make or break the appearance of text [fig. 3]. Font Bureau consults with editors about the use of hyphens in a publication’s style book, and is frequently commissioned to consult on the best hyphenation and justification settings to produce the most even color for text set in a given font, particularly when the measure is short.

FIG. 3

Choice of point size, leading (interline spacing), column width, and margins lie in the hands of the document designer, or user. Good balance between these elements is required if everything else is to work properly. Narrow columns require little, if any, leading. The longer the line, the greater the leading required [fig. 4]. The space between columns must be large enough to prevent interference. The margins must be wide enough to properly separate the columns of type from the surroundings.

FIG. 4

Beyond competent design, readability depends, above all, on familiarity. In trademarks, headlines and advertising, unusual shapes, weights and spacing express character and catch attention. If such fonts are used in the mass of text they disturb the reading of smooth, easy and comfortable text.

In readability tests run in Switzerland, a given block of text set in Helvetica was read slightly faster than the same text set in Times Roman [fig. 5]. The Swiss read more text set in sans serif faces than in serifed, and are deeply familiar with the sans serif shapes; here the opposite is true. We read more text set in serifed faces, find serifed forms more comfortable, and read them faster.

FIG. 5

Fonts for news text in the English speaking world have not strayed too far from our familiar serifed text designs, witness Poynter Oldstyle, Miller Daily, Benton Modern, Bureau Roman. From the fifteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth text worldwide was set in serifed designs. In most places sans serif designs were used principally for display. Through the twentieth century the Swiss developed a love affair with their elegant grotesques, using them for everything, including text. Worldwide use of sans serif has been gaining ground, even for true newstext, witness Poynter Gothic.

The smallest news fonts, those used for agate, sports scores, the financial tables and classified, have to be sans serif. The serifs for such a font would not print, and would be too small to read. We offer Poynter Agate.

Readability vs. Legibility

Readability refers to the ability to read text in the mass.

Legibility refers to recognition of a few words, lines that tend to be short, (typically news headlines, signs, anything with a few large words): above all Font Bureau Interstate.

Listings that consist of lines made up of a few short words require legibility. These lines are to be read one line at a time: typically lines in the phone book, lists of stock prices (each short line a handful of small words). In these cases the logical answer trends to sans serif designs that pack maximum text into the smallest space with maximum legibility: Matt Carter’s Bell Centennial, Font Bureau Poynter Agate. Fonts designed for legibility are intended for use in news headlines, signage, phone books, financial tables, and are not intended to provide readability in the mass [fig. 6].

FIG. 6

Developing Newsfonts:
Grades Adjust Weight of Font Bureau Newstext

Multiple grades provide the compensation necessary for variations in print quality in newstext. Grades are a controlled series of slightly lighter to slightly heavier versions of a newstext font [fig. 7]. Typically there are four to a series. They are designed to compensate for platemaking techniques that reduce or enlarge the image on the plate plus printing techniques that starve or flood that typographic image which is then laid down on hard or soft paper.

FIG. 7: FOUR GRADES OF BENTON MODERN

Such changes in platemaking, printing or paper may add or subtract weight from text in one or another section of a major newspaper [fig. 8]. This effect is compensated by moving up or down a grade or two for these sections.

FIG. 8: DETAIL OF BUREAU ROMAN TWO 8 PT PRINTED ON NEWSPRINT

C.H. Griffith introduced the technique at Mergenthaler Linotype. Excelsior, designed in 1931, was the first typeface specifically designed to stand up to the conditions found in American newspapers. Paragon was designed in 1935 as a slightly lighter Excelsior to counteract the increase in weight caused by printing rotogravure, or by flooding the type in tabloids to punch up the halftone images and ads. Opticon was designed as a slightly heavier Excelsior for use at papers that starved the page to capture detail in halftones, particularly when printed on hard Scandinavian newsprint. The three shared identical character widths. Properly used, text in all cases appeared as normal Excelsior [fig. 9].

FIG. 9: C.H. GRIFFITH’S PARAGON, EXCELSIOR, AND OPTICON, THE FIRST GRADED NEWSPAPER TYPE FAMILY

Sixty-two years later Font Bureau reintroduced the idea in Poynter Oldstyle. At the Poynter Conferences, newspaper designers were complaining that no one was making dedicated news faces any more. Roger Black arranged for Mike Parker, Griffith’s successor working with the Font Bureau, to attend the next Poynter conference. Sponsored by the Poynter Institute, Font Bureau consciously returned to the analytical techniques introduced by Griffith and prepared Poynter Oldstyle [fig. 10].

FIG. 10: POYNTER OLDSTYLE TEXT

The Poynter Oldstyle series was built around four grades of the text weight. The variety of platemaking techniques used today in major papers and their effect on the text face calls for such fine adjustment. Subtle gradation of the system is used by designers to precision-tune their papers, whether to keep the overall color of text consistent between sections printed on different presses, or to satisfy a personal preference for lighter or darker pages of text.

The reintroduction of grades, the economies of oldstyle design and the return to an archtypical form led to swift success. Poynter Oldstyle Text became the third most popular face for newstext in the world.

Font Bureau offers grades in six major news series, with more to come, each designed to meet the requirements of art directors wishing for variety [fig. 11]. Demand for this practical refinement has spurred our Readability Library to continued growth ever since.

FIG. 11