{"id":610,"date":"2009-07-28T13:49:15","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T20:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/?p=610"},"modified":"2009-10-07T00:44:22","modified_gmt":"2009-10-07T07:44:22","slug":"the-art-of-setting-type","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/archives\/610","title":{"rendered":"The art of setting type"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/BLOGimages\/Typeset1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018Graphic designers were never meant to set type &nbsp;. . .&nbsp; That\u2019s what typesetters are for.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not even sure who said this, it was early on; probably college. Possibly a printer, maybe Roger. Roger would say stuff like that. He\u2019d swear to the \u2018ITC god\u2019 and he had the old dusty Varitype machine sitting in the corner to prove it. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/BLOGimages\/Typeset2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Years ago, we had <em>typesetters<\/em>. Their job was to set type. And when the computer really took over (early 1990s) the typesetters went away. And designers became responsible for doing their own typesetting. With many varied results, the key observation is that quality has really gone out the window. To say the least.<\/p>\n<p>Graphic designers today have a lot to worry about, so why worry about type. They\u2019re supposed to be concentrating on <em>designing stuff<\/em> \u2013\u00a0and that\u2019s what they do. They design and when they have to do the type, they just &nbsp;. . .&nbsp; Let it happen.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of really good pieces are ruined this way. <\/p>\n<p>Great designers, lousy typesetting skills. At least in the old days, the typesetter was trained in the Real Way to do things (well, sort of; whole dissertation on ITC and why \u2018close but not touching\u2019 didn\u2019t quite work should fit in here).<\/p>\n<p>Software makes it so easy, the defaults just kick in and they almost work. <em>Almost<\/em>. And Adobe has done a great job with OpenType features and (my favorite) Optical kerning (it\u2019s on the type palette, switch \u2018Auto\u2019 to \u2018Optical\u2019 and let it go. Fixes a lot of spacing issues. It SHOULD be the default). But type still has to be massaged. Adjusted, tweaked, cleaned up and &nbsp;. . .&nbsp; to show respect for the work &nbsp;. . .&nbsp; made to <em>read well<\/em>. Made to where it reads so well, it\u2019s not given a second thought. The ideas flow. It doesn\u2019t look wonky, it doesn\u2019t hurt eyes. Communication happens.<\/p>\n<p>I spend about 10 hours teaching how to set a simple paragraph. Text only. No silly bits, no drop shadows, no goofy overlaps. Just good text. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an art based on tradition. Worth studying. Worth preserving.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/BLOGimages\/Typeset3.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><em>Pictured: Student pages from my typesetting critique, July 22nd, 2009.<br \/>\nThanks to Tiffany Valdez for sending over the snaps.<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\t<div style=\"float: left; \">\r\n\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"horizontal\" data-text=\"The art of setting type\" data-url=\"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/archives\/610\"  data-via=\"mehallo\">Tweet<\/a>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Graphic designers were never meant to set type &nbsp;. . .&nbsp; That\u2019s what typesetters are for.\u2019 I\u2019m not even sure who said this, it was early on; probably college. Possibly a printer, maybe Roger. Roger would say stuff like that. He\u2019d swear to the \u2018ITC god\u2019 and he had the old dusty Varitype machine sitting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,54,49,127,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-design-history","category-education","category-fonts","category-typography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5582,"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/5582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}