General typography concerns

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]

I'll start this off with a quote from Bruce from quite a while back that I
agree with wholeheartedly (as witness the fact that I saved it):

"If you know even a little bit about typography, a simple walk
down the street can be painful."

The world around us abounds in bad typography. One of my friends is a small
press book publisher, and has long years experience in the field of
typography (and it was partly through him that I got interested in the
field, if you're looking for someone to blame -- he was also the one who
first acquainted me with the idea that a 300dpi laser printer was a
low-resolution output device). He's constantly doubly amazed -- at the bad
typography that gets perpetrated by people who should know better, and by
the fact they get away with it.

Unfortunately, it highlights the fact that while good typography does in
fact improve a printed product (right now there *is* no such thing as good
typography on a computer screen, just varying degrees of "bad" -- in a few
years, when common LCDs start nudging 300dpi, that may change) it's not
particularly valued by the average reader. The average reader, like the
average computer user, puts up with low quality, expects low quality, and
generally refuses to pay for anything better. This is probably accounted
for in the doctrine of "satisficing" that underlies a lot of web navigation
design theory these days -- the concept that the customer (or viewer, in
the case of web design) will accept something sub-optimal but simple over
something more complicated but a closer fit to the actual needs. It could
be thought of as analogous to Pareto, in which 80% of the way is easy to
attain, but that last 20% is much more difficult to cover.

That's the position I've been coming from in the "Font Selection" thread. I
apologize if it seemed to go on for longer than it should have; I just was
unwilling to accept the idea that someone didn't recognize what seemed to
me to be obvious; customers don't want to pay for the perfect product --
they simply want something that "will do." Explain VHS over Beta, Windows
over any other challenger, in any other way. Deliver an adequate
functionality, and the customer will generally stop paying for more.

There are a host of factors in typography that help the appearance of the
document, and which you can bring to the document *if you know them* but
which no customer is willing to pay you for the time it will take you to
absorb them (and, unfortunately, will not generally pay you very much more
for -- you'll have to settle for more customers, not higher-paying
customers, I fear). After all, with just a semi-educated eye (which you
probably already have acquired, simply from reading other books and manuals
and noting what works and what doesn't -- you *do* do that, don't you?) you
can produce something that "will do," and that's all the customer wants.
Oh, *you* can see the differences and you'll see more of them as time goes
on and you encounter those rare instances of good typography in the world
(emigre magazine is a good showcase; there's bad and good typography in
there -- a result of being on the cutting edge -- but since they exist
within a few pages of each other, you can use it as a tool to help train
your eye) but you're one of the few who'll even care about it.

I've had a couple of people ask me offline about mixing fonts. There's a
bit of art to this, and you'll find experts to disagree with almost any
rules put forward, but a simple guideline is no more than one serif and one
sans-serif in a document. Exceptions can be made for a second serif
monospaced -- many computer manuals use this technique for representing
literal text on a screen, but it's not necessary. Which fonts work
together? Lots of guidelines, but all can be broken, if your eye supports
it.

You want an easy way to make selections? If you're willing to let someone
else do your thinking for you, try http://www.will-harris.com/esp1.htm
(it's called "Esperfonto" -- a good language pun -- by Daniel Will-Harris).
I won't say he's always right, but he's a good place to start from, and
he's more often right than wrong, I think.

You want a good place to start learning about this stuff? A Manual of
Typographical Style (Robert Bringhurst) is a great place to start. Someone
else mentioned "Stop Stealing Sheep," which I like but definitely consider
inferior to Bringhurst. Other good sources, getting progressively farther
away from typography and stepping over the line into general design are
"The Design of Books" (Wilson), "The Newspaper Designer's Handbook"
(Harrower) and "A Primer of Visual Literacy" (Dondis).

Is any of this actually necessary to tech writing? Depends. Manuals will be
written and sold which break every rule in every one of those books, and
the writers and publishers that do that will continue to prosper. Do I
think that will change? Not in the least. 90% of tech writing is, and will
continue to be, crap (specific application of Sturgeon's Law). That
indicates that any knowledge beyond the rudimentary level in this area
*isn't* necessary. But perhaps the field interests you personally, or
perhaps you're one of the very few whose teeth are set on edge when you
look at something you wrote a few years ago, when you were young and
ingnorant (or perhaps only one of those adjectives would legitimately
apply) and you hide it in a very dark place. For those very few of us, it's
definitely necessary.

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.


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