Courtney's Type Tricks and Tips

Because last week was pretty hectic I have a double whammy of information!
Since my team are wrapping up holiday, I've decided to do a little on Initial Caps, Alternate Swashes, and little on Humanist type period.


Intial Caps or drop caps, what is the diff?
Intial caps are over sized letterforms that starts at the beginning of paragraphs using only the first letter of the first word of the first paragraph. The initial may sit on the same baseline as the first line of text, at the same margin.

Drop caps has the same purpose but the intial sits within the margins and runs several lines deep into the paragraph pushing some normal-sized text off these lines.

This style of typography dates back to the super old days try circa 200 when manuscripts were handwritten. Because of its popularity it has been passed down as a tradition of Roman text, It has lasted through out the periods of typography movements and can be used today. I think the best way to utilize this treatment is to find a typeface that has simuliar qualities of the your text typeface. Because intial caps do not come as a family of fonts such as Helvetica (roman, italic, bold, etc) you would have to silulate that both typefaces belong together. Also dont forget to work with the initial caps--that is to fix the kerning and baseline shift of the typefaces.

For more fun info lookie here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial


Alternate swashes
Another fun way to work with type is to use alternate swashes. It was developed out of using letterforms from calligraphers. Typically swashes are used at the beginning or the end of a word. However, it is not limited to only that usage. Some typefaces have alternate swashes for letterforms that work in a word that is not at the beginning or at the end, but does not read very well.

A typeface that we have that we can use is Zapfino. Some swash letters can be added almost anywhere. Avalon, Bookman, Garamond, also has alternate swashes. Those are some that are off the top of my head. I will further research what typefaces are available in our library.

For more fun info lookie here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swash_(typography)



Humanist period in Typography
So with all the Holiday cards, i chose to highlight the humanist period...why? Well it seems that with the religious tie of Christmas, although we recognize all kinds of religions, winter, santa claus, and holiday in general that majority of the typefaces that fit are from this period.

The Humanist types (sometimes referred to as Venetian) appeared during the 1460s and 1470s, and were modelled not on the dark gothic scripts like textura, but on the lighter, more open forms of the Italian humanist writers. The Humanist types were at the same time the first roman types.

Characteristics
So what makes Humanist, Humanist? What distinguishes it from other styles? What are its main characteristics?
1 Sloping cross-bar on the lowercase “e”;
2 Relatively small x-height;3 Low contrast between “thick” and “thin” strokes (basically that means that there is little variation in the stroke width);
4 Dark colour (not a reference to colour in the traditional sense, but the overall lightness or darkness of the page). To get a better impression of a page’s “colour” look at it through half-closed eyes.

For more fun info lookie here: http://ilovetypography.com/2007/11/06/type-terminology-humanist-2/

Adjust Baseline shift in InDesign
Move Up by Increment Option-Shift-up arrow
Move Down by Increment Option-Shift-down arrow
(add Cmd to the above keystrokes to make them Increment x 5)
Because last week was pretty hectic I have a double whammy of information!
Since my team are wrapping up holiday, I've decided to do a little on Initial Caps, Alternate Swashes, and little on Humanist type period.


Intial Caps or drop caps, what is the diff?
Intial caps are over sized letterforms that starts at the beginning of paragraphs using only the first letter of the first word of the first paragraph. The initial may sit on the same baseline as the first line of text, at the same margin.

Drop caps has the same purpose but the intial sits within the margins and runs several lines deep into the paragraph pushing some normal-sized text off these lines.

This style of typography dates back to the super old days try circa 200 when manuscripts were handwritten. Because of its popularity it has been passed down as a tradition of Roman text, It has lasted through out the periods of typography movements and can be used today. I think the best way to utilize this treatment is to find a typeface that has simuliar qualities of the your text typeface. Because intial caps do not come as a family of fonts such as Helvetica (roman, italic, bold, etc) you would have to silulate that both typefaces belong together. Also dont forget to work with the initial caps--that is to fix the kerning and baseline shift of the typefaces.

For more fun info lookie here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial


Alternate swashes
Another fun way to work with type is to use alternate swashes. It was developed out of using letterforms from calligraphers. Typically swashes are used at the beginning or the end of a word. However, it is not limited to only that usage. Some typefaces have alternate swashes for letterforms that work in a word that is not at the beginning or at the end, but does not read very well.

A typeface that we have that we can use is Zapfino. Some swash letters can be added almost anywhere. Avalon, Bookman, Garamond, also has alternate swashes. Those are some that are off the top of my head. I will further research what typefaces are available in our library.

For more fun info lookie here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swash_(typography)



Humanist period in Typography
So with all the Holiday cards, i chose to highlight the humanist period...why? Well it seems that with the religious tie of Christmas, although we recognize all kinds of religions, winter, santa claus, and holiday in general that majority of the typefaces that fit are from this period.

The Humanist types (sometimes referred to as Venetian) appeared during the 1460s and 1470s, and were modelled not on the dark gothic scripts like textura, but on the lighter, more open forms of the Italian humanist writers. The Humanist types were at the same time the first roman types.

Characteristics
So what makes Humanist, Humanist? What distinguishes it from other styles? What are its main characteristics?
1 Sloping cross-bar on the lowercase “e”;
2 Relatively small x-height;3 Low contrast between “thick” and “thin” strokes (basically that means that there is little variation in the stroke width);
4 Dark colour (not a reference to colour in the traditional sense, but the overall lightness or darkness of the page). To get a better impression of a page’s “colour” look at it through half-closed eyes.

For more fun info lookie here: http://ilovetypography.com/2007/11/06/type-terminology-humanist-2/

Adjust Baseline shift in InDesign
Move Up by Increment Option-Shift-up arrow
Move Down by Increment Option-Shift-down arrow
(add Cmd to the above keystrokes to make them Increment x 5)