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From: alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Typography--Was Re: ventura
Message-ID: <1989Jun14.000700.27327@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Date: 14 Jun 89 00:07:00 GMT
References: <32118@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <7650004@hpwrce.HP.COM> <32294@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <1368@lzfme.att.com>
Reply-To: alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley)
Organization: Computing Serv. Ctr, Victoria Uni., Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 102

>In article <litfl>, maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes:
>Well, Howard, reading a bad book doesn't make you a good writer. If
>you come from the UNIX/troff school, you have probably gotten used
>to one of the worst default document designs ever to be perpetrated
>upon the unsuspecting public. Troff uses 10 point times roman,
>justified, with a 6-1/2 inch line length.
>	1) Times Roman doesn't reproduce well on laser printers at
>	   300 dpi. (Troff was intended for use with a typesetter.)
>	2) Justified type is harder to read than ragged right.
>	3) Optimum line length is 39-52 characters rather than the
>           80 or so you get with 10 point TR in 6.5 inch lines.
>	4) If you're writing for a European audience, sans serif
>           type is easier to read. In the US, serif is easier. (It
>           depends on what you were brought up on.)

I'm not a professional typographer (I define typography as in the
following manner: "Anyone can draw lines on a page, art consists of
knowing where to put the lines -- anyone can place words on a page,
typography is knowing where to put the words"), but I do produce a
magazine and I do simple desktop publishing for people. 

But I'm also cynical and I firmly believe that many publishing standards
are dictated by expediency rather than hard rational reasons. For
example: rules 2 and 3 quoted above. 

2. Justified type is harder to read than than ragged right.

 Could someone cite a study giving this conclusion? All I've ever seen is
arguments along the lines of less eye movement with ragged right vs
arguments of constant eye speed with justified text. And when I look to
the publishing world -- the books I read are justified, the newspapers I
read are justified, many of the magazines I read are justified. To me this
results in several possible conclusions:

	a) Justified looks better and form is more important than content.
	   Hence everyone uses justified and to hell with readability.

	b) Most publishers/printers are incompetent if they can't even get
	   a simple thing like ragged right correct.

	c) It's not a hard and fast rule. Both justified and ragged right
	   are useful in certain situations and there is a set of heuristics
           to choose when to use one or the other.

I vote for option c.

3. Optimum line length is 39-52 characters. 

Well I look again to publications, newspapers vary between 28 and 36 (from
my sampling), magazines are slightly better varying from 40 to 44 and
books vary from 60 to 90 characters to the line. Again you can draw
several conclusions...


For me, it seems that you have to look at the intention of your
publication. For example, newspapers exist to sell advertising, that is
their purpose, everything else is secondary. Thus advertising copy is of
the utmost importance. So you have short articles, in narrow columns to
give the maximum flexibility in wrapping the text around the ads. I've
talked to newspaper printers and they tell me that the ad copy is always
laid out first and the text mangled to fit around it. Again, you can make
all sorts of rationalisations about how narrow columns are easier to read,
how people prefer their news in short bursts, but the bottom line is that
in a newspaper the layout revolves around presenting ads. 

Magazines are the next step in that the ad copy is still very important,
but there is a little more flexibility (competition is also important and
the intended market, compare Scientific American with the British Weekly
New Scientist and with the JACMs). 

And so on. To me Typography does not consist of hard rules such as 40-60
characters to a line, ragged right instead of justified, multiple columns
are better than single columns. Typography consists of a set of design
principles and a sense of aesthetics. I have seen publications which apply
of the rules I've mentioned in this para and they still fail, because the
rules were applied mechanically without anyone looking at the aesthetics.

I feel that the two most important design principles in typography are
consistency and restraint (don't use more than two fonts per page
unless... don't change layouts midway through a publication, unless...)
once those principles are mastered, you can go on to more complicated
concerns such as serif is easier for US audiences to read (what do you do
if you're publishing an international magazine like BYTE? Serif or
Sans-serif?)

Having said all that, I'm prepared to be wrong. This is my analysis based
on looking to the printed things I encounter every day. Newspapers have
been around for well over a hundred years, one would think their design
principles are fairly well known by now. Likewise for books. I'd like to
hear, through this forum from people who can offer good reasons for hard
rules, I'd like to hear from people who disagree with my analysis, I want
to learn -- if I'm wrong then I'd like to learn where I'm wrong. 

And most of all I'd like to hear about the sets of design principles that
others use. A sense of aesthetics on the other hand... well can aesthetics
be learned or are they innate?


Alex Heatley                                Computing Services Centre
Domain: alex@rata.vuw.ac.nz                 Victoria University of Wellington
Path: ...!uunet!vuwcomp!rata!alex           P.O Box 600, New Zealand.
Trolls can often be found under bridges ... or in Computing Departments.