SchoolArts - January 2012

DESIGN THINKING
Bringing Order to Life’s Complexity

Marty Rayala

There is perhaps no clearer contrast between artists and esigners than their attitudes toward the use of type. The established conventions surrounding the arrangement of words on a page can seem boring, rigid, and lacking in creativity to non-designers.

Design, like life, is governed by rules and parameters. Artists like to intentionally break rules to express their individuality and creativity. Art teachers have conflicting expectations of fostering individuality and creativity, while maintaining orderly classrooms.

Designers have guidelines that promote legibility while pleasing the eye. Artists will often sacrifice readability in favor of individual expressiveness. What appears creative to artists can resemble the mismatched patterns and colors of a used-car salesman’s wardrobe to designers.

While designers favor clean, legible type arranged in straight lines with only a few different fonts on a page, the artistically inclined use many different exotic fonts, unconstrained by a base line.

and DESIGNmagazine.blogspot.com

the line of other letters or they would look too small.

Lines of type are separated by white spaces called leading, because in the time of manual typesetting, the separation was actually created by thin strips of lead placed between the lines.

The ends of the lines are
justified left, right, or
both to create a pleasing
edge and enhance read-
ability. Blocks of type are
aligned with photos and
other elements on a page with the help
of an invisible grid to make a satisfying
arrangement.

Design, like life, is
governed by rules
and parameters.
The Organization of Type

There is an elegance and beauty to the design of each individual letter in font design. Fonts have names, creators, and histories. In fact, filmmaker Gary Hustwit created a feature-length documentary called Helvetica to pay homage to that now ubiquitous font.

The adjustment of
spaces between letters to create a pleas-
ing rhythm of white spaces is called
kerning. Letters that slant (like “W”
and “A”) or curve (like “D” and “O”)
must be kerned more closely together
to minimize the additional white space
their shapes create. Letters with curves
at the top or bottom (like “G” or “S”)
must extend slightly above and below
understand the subtle beauty of type.
Learning to use type is like learning
to play the musical notes of a song or
speak the lines in a script.