Typography. Text in Illustrator and InDesign. Martin Constable February 11, RMIT Vietnam

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1 Typography Text in Illustrator and InDesign Martin Constable February 11, 2018 RMIT Vietnam

2 Adobe s Typography Toolset Adobe s Typography Toolset Type tool Paragraph panel Character panel Typography Terminology Styles Common Typographical Mistakes Resources 1

3 One of the great strengths of Illustrator and InDesign is their typography toolset. Though they seems similar, PS s type tools are no where near as good. Illustrator s type tools are more exotic than InDesign s, but generally they are similar enough to be addressed in one lecture. 2

Type tool The Type Tool in Illustrator has lots of variants, which we won t cover here (e.g. the Area Type Tool which creates text within vector shapes).

4 Type tool The Type Tool in Illustrator has lots of variants, which we won t cover here (e.g. the Area Type Tool which creates text within vector shapes). The basic Illustrator type tool is a little quirky to use: Click and start typing to enter text at a point Click/drag and start typing to enter text in an text frame 3

5 Type tool The Type Tool in InDesign has fewer variants. The basic InDesign type tool is simple: Click/drag and start typing to enter text in an text frame To type within a frame, the frames first need to be defined using the Frame Tool. 4

6 Type tool In summary, Illustrator is good for quick, freehand text, whilst InDesign is good for a more methodical approach. 5

7 Paragraph panel The Paragraph panel in InDesign and Illustrator defines the spacing properties of a block of paragraph text. In typography, paragraph text can include the title, headers, subheaders and captions as well as the body paragraph. 6

8 I shall assume that the Align options are obvious (they are the same as MS Words and every other text tool ever). Text that has been left aligned 7

9 Here the Left Indent parameter has been increased. Text that has been indented on the left 8

10 Here the First Line Left Indent parameter has been increased. This is very useful to differentiate one paragraph from another. The first line of a paragraph has been indented 9

11 Here the Space Before parameter has been increased. This is also very useful to differentiate one paragraph from another... The space after each paragraph has been inceased 10

12 ...please use them as alternatives to double-return (hitting the enter key twice), which can look amateurish, especially on single-page designs. The double-return after a paragraph (evil) 11

13 Character panel The Character panel defines the appearance of individual characters. 12

14 The Kerning value effects the distance between individual characters. It is usually used to fix the appearance of individual words. In essence, the gaps between letters is not uniform. Some letter-pairs require more space than others. Kerning (Top) kerning value of y at default, (bottom) kerning value of y decreased (see how cramped it looks) 13

15 The Leading value increases the spaces between lines of a paragraph. It is useful for compressing or expanding blocks of text to make them fit a layout. Leading (Top) default leading value, (bottom) leading value increased 14

The Tracking value increases the spaces between all characters. It is easy to confuse with Kerning, which affects the spaces between individual characters.

16 The Tracking value increases the spaces between all characters. It is easy to confuse with Kerning, which affects the spaces between individual characters. Different to Kerning, it is a value that is universal for the entire block of text. It is often used to fix the flow of text: to remove unwanted hyphens and widows and orphans. Tracking (Top) default tracking value, (bottom) tracking value increased 15

17 Typography Terminology Adobe s Typography Toolset Typography Terminology Characters Glyphs Serif and sans serif Monospace Styles Widows and orphans Other type terms Common Typographical Mistakes Resources 16

18 Typographers employ so much obscure terminology you d think they were Spanish. 17

19 Characters A characters can be an upper case or lower case letter, an exclamation mark, a mathematical symbol etc. Illustrator s Glyph panel (Type/Glyphs) 18

20 Glyphs Glyphs are variants of symbols with agreed-upon meanings. In this country, you need em. Illustrator s Glyph panel (Type/Glyphs) 19

21 Serif and sans serif Serif and Sans Serif. Serif has its roots in ancient Roman inscriptions carved in stone. 1 Serif and Sans Serif 1 more here: 20

22 Monospace As stated, most fonts employ different spaces between different characters. The characters of a monospace font are evenly spaced. Emulating old-style typewriter font, they have been designed for use in digital media (e.g. , html editors etc). Generally, in typography, such fonts are avoided. Monospace! 21

23 Widows and orphans A widow is the charming name given to a line of text at the top of a page, left over from the preceding paragraph. An orphan is a single word at the bottom of a paragraph. Both these should be avoided as they interrupt the visual flow of the text. (A) An orphan word, (B) a widow sentence 22

24 Other type terms Other type terms... Anatomy of type 1 1 Image from: 23

25 Styles Adobe s Typography Toolset Typography Terminology Styles Ad hoc vs defined styles Paragraph and Character panels Paragraph Styles Character Styles Defining styles Contextual menu of Styles panel Top Tip I Top Tip II Common Typographical Mistakes Resources 24

26 Defining styles in InDesign is very important to do in a multipage document. 25

27 Ad hoc vs defined styles Styled text may be applied in an ad hoc 2 manner, or saved as a defined collection of style attributes. The advantage of defined styles is that they may edited and globally updated. As a general principle, ad-hoc styles should be avoided. This course prefers defined styles. 2 i.e. as the need arises 26

28 Paragraph and Character panels There are two flavours of saved styles: paragraph styles and character styles. Illustrator and InDesign have Paragraph and Character panels. Using these, selected text may be styled. The Paragraph and Character panels 27

29 Paragraph Styles A paragraph style can be a title, sub-header, body, caption etc. In fact anything framed within a pair of paragraph breaks 3 is a candidate for a paragraph style. The text below has employed five paragraph styles. 3 A paragraph break = hitting the return key 28

30 Character Styles Within a paragraph, some text may be in bold or italic. This is a candidate for a character style. The text below employs two character styles. 29

31 Defining styles Selecting text within your document will highlight the style (paragraph or character) that is affiliated with that text (text not explicitly defined will appear as the default Basic Paragraph style). Selected text showing its affiliated style 30

32 In InDesign, probably the easiest way of defining a new style, is to first configure some text in an ad-hoc manner (i.e. the font, its size, spacing etc etc). Then select the text and press the Create new style button at the bottom of the Styles panel. Create a new style from selected text 31

33 Thereafter the style may be further edited by double-clicking it, and fiddling with the style attributes in the Paragraph Style Options panel. The Paragraph Style Options panel 32

34 If styled text is re-styled in some way, then a little plus sign will show next to the style name. This indicates that the defined style is conflicting with the text in the document. This is a bad thing. Selected text that no longer conforms to its named style 33

35 Contextual menu of Styles panel Right clicking on the selected style will reveal a Contextual menu with three key options... 34

36 1: Redefine Style will change the selected style to match that of the selected text. Redefining a style from selected text 35

37 2: Apply style name. This re-applies the style to the selected text. Redefining a style from selected text 36

38 3: Apply style name, Clear Overrides. This re-applies the style to the selected text, and also completely clears it of any other styles, such as character styles within a block of paragraph text. Redefining a style from selected text 37

39 Top Tip I Top tip I: all text within your document should be defined by a named style. In the latest version of InDesign there is a widget in the top right corner of the Styles panel. If this is pressed, any text that cannot be accounted for by a named style is highlighted in cyan. Naughty text 38

40 Top Tip II Top tip II: styles may be imported from external InDesign documents via the fly-off menu in top right hand corner of the Styles panels. Importing styles into the paragraph and character Styles palettes 39

41 Common Typographical Mistakes Adobe s Typography Toolset Typography Terminology Styles Common Typographical Mistakes Ugly top ten Resources 40

42 Don t do ugly. We don t like ugly. It makes kittens cry. 41

43 Ugly top ten Below some common typography mistakes... 4 Avoid playing with kerning, leading and tracking, unless you know what you are doing. Careless adjustment of these values can look amateurish. Related to the above, when using the transform tool on text, don t squeeze or stretch it. Ever. When creating gaps between paragraphs, avoid double-return (hitting the enter key twice). This can look amateurish. Instead use First Line Indent or Space Before of the Paragraph panel. Avoid employing bold in blocks of paragraph text. This can look ugly. 4 More here: 42

44 Continued... Avoid widows and orphans. Avoid more than three typefaces in one page. Avoid mixing serif and sans serf fonts. Don t mix fonts that are too similar. Govern the appearance of a many-page document by using styles. Avoid using flashy things like drop shadows on your text. It can make it very unreadable. All the preceding may be ignored if you know (or want to know) what you are doing. 43

45 Resources Adobe s Typography Toolset Typography Terminology Styles Common Typographical Mistakes Resources Giang s notes Other resources 44

46 Other places to get info on Illustrator and typography. 45

47 Giang s notes Wonderfull notes from the charming and ever-youthful Giang Nguyen (Design for Digital Media 1). If you can only read one of these, I recommend Typography Essentials.pdf. Introduction To Typography 1 Typography Essentials 2 Selecting Type 3 Using Type

48 Other resources Others: Adobe s introduction to Illustrator 1 Adobe s introduction to the Pen tool 2 This introduction to kerning and tracking 3 A nice Instagram account from 36 Days of Type This site:

49 - THE END - 47

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