The Importance of Typography

Or why Times New Roman is so last Century Gothic
Alternatively, what the Helvetica is going on with fonts?

    So this is going to sound kooky, but fonts have personality. No, not fronts or fronds or fondue-- fonts. You probably remember your teacher telling you, "Only use Times New Roman or you'll never get into college!" Yes, the thing you probably can barely describe but completely surrounds you in print media. It's on your favorite bag of chips, your comfy sweater, and on the computer screen right in front of you. 

    Font, or typography, is the purposefully and carefully chosen craft of choosing how words and symbols appear in print media. It conveys personality and purpose. It taps into the Jungian archetypes-- from heroic to villainous, from analytical to whimsical, and to everything in between. 

"elefonts" by John Atkinson

    Cartographers employ the same skills in order to communicate effectively. Just like there is an infinite variety of advertisements, there is a wide array of map styles-- each with their own unique way of communicating. 

    When you say the word "map", most people's first thought is of a road map. These are your standard documents depicting an area; they usually show roads, large geographic features, and other important points of interest. Below is an example of a reference map that I created for the city of San Francisco. 

    As you can see, it has all of the standard elements of the typical map: blue stuff is for water, green is for forestry, and black is for roads. However, the focus of this map is the typography. As stated earlier, typography is the processing and artful rendering of text to convey understanding. 

    Typography is more than just reading the words. It's processing the text size, placement and    l e a d i n g , color, shadow or halo, and overall style.

Click map to enlarge

    Even with something as simple as a road map, each text is carefully chosen to tap into previous experience, expectations, and general knowledge. So let's go over some of the key text elements here and how they achieve just that.

    Visual hierarchy is one of the pillars of reading any document. Visual hierarchy is the overall placement of each element to indicate levels of importance. The largest text is reserved for the title, which reflects the main thought. For reference maps, the main idea should be straightforward: the location. The title should also be placed at the top of the document for top-to-bottom reading. A subtitle can be added in a smaller font to give further detail such as a more general location. The size of the font should reflect either its importance or the size of the feature.

   

    Color has archetypal connotations-- red for danger, blue for calming water, green for growing plants. In this map, I follow the same ideas, reserving blue text for areas of water, green for parks and forests, and black for manmade creations. Since text can be difficult to read on a busy background, it helps to add additional color through halos. In this map, most of the text has a very thin white halo to create a buffer between the text and the background.

    Not only can I see your halo, halo, halo, you lead me right round, baby, right round... with leading. Leading (pronounced "led-ing") is the space between lines. In addition, kerning is the space between individual letters. In combination, both aid in legibility and can convey additional information. In mapping, words with large kerning or spaces between letters indicate a large feature. In this example, the Marin Peninsula is spaced out over the entire geographic feature. This shows the boundary of the landform without the use of distracting boundary lines.

    Combined with all these choices, a dearth of knowledge can be conveyed in a tiny space. Typography is more than just the arranging of letters and words; it's a powerful design element that influences how information to perceived, understood, and remembered.