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14 studying the reading process • challenging received knowledge reading in jumps • foveal and peripheral vision • legibility and readability Reading and seeing 15 Legibility: designers versus academics How exactly do we read? serif Reading is a virtually unfathomable interplay between the eyes and the brain. Within fractions of seconds letters, words and pieces of sentences are recognised, connections are found, conclu- sions drawn. It is hard to prove what factors exactly influence the efficiency of that process. For many decades, psychologists, physiologists and typographers have conducted research on the optical and physiological (and, at times, the psychological) aspects of reading. With sophisticated machinery they have investigated the way in which our eyes perceive the text. There have been attempts to find out what kind of letters we read best by measuring reading times and questioning test subjects about their under- standing of the text. A recurring question in this context has been whether reading letters with or without serifs is easier or more agreeable. Scientists and typographers have never reached an agreement about this issue. In many essays and text books on typography it is said that classic serif types are by far the best choice for the body text, text masses usually set in body sizes between c. 8 pt and 12 pt. Supposedly, the serifs optically connect the single letters of words and lines and thus guarantee a horizontal, forward movement of Reading: it’s all in the mind If you’re lucky, this little test will show you that reading requires complex teamwork between the eyes and the brain. Try counting how often the letter F appears in the text below: finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years. Test! the eye. This typographers’ theory is hardly supported by evidence from academic legibility research. At best, they prove that people have a slight preference for serif type in printed text and for sans-serif when reading on-screen. It is highly likely that the typographers’ theory is a rationalisation of personal preferences relating to traditionalism and habits. But the academics also deserve some of the blame. Undeterred by any typographic knowledge they often compared any old sans-serif (i.e. Helvetica) to the nearest oldstyle book type (usually Times), without taking into account essential variables such as size, leading, weight, contrast style, and so on. Comparing Gill Sans to, say, Goudy Oldstyle, might have yielded a totally different outcome – let alone the inclusion of contempo- rary sans-serifs designed for legibility, such as TheSans, Kievit or Shaker. The cloud has a silver lining, though. For the past five years a new generation of typographic experts of disparate academic backgrounds has been questioning the findings of the past, trying to tackle the problem of reading with an open mind and new research techniques. word ‘of’ as one single shape. instances of ‘f’ because their brains register the score. Many guinea-pigs overlook three of the alert. Even four or five is considered a good Did you see six ‘f’s? That means you are very The physics of reading has been the subject of academic research for over a hundred years. Towards 1900, the French eye doctor and engineer Louis Émile Javal was the first to develop a method to measure eye movements when reading. Javal’s pioneering research still forms the basis of what doctors, psychologists and typographers are trying to learn about reading today. Reading in jumps Javal discovered that we don’t read letter by letter, but in wisps. The eye glimpses across the text, getting stuck a few times in the process: the so- called fixations. This way of looking-in-motion is related to a discovery made 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci: he found that the lenses of our eyes can see only a small section from our field of vision with total acuity – everything beyond that sharply defined centre is peripheral, ‘fringe’. The nearer we approach the object we are looking at, the narrower the part we can focus on. Thus, our eyes can record only a few letters at a time. As soon as a group of letters – not necessar- ily coinciding with a complete word – has been recognised, they jump to the next group: this is called a saccade. Meanwhile the brain is not only processing the data provided by the eyes, it is also searching our internal database for words corresponding to what the eye thinks it has seen. In a way, the brain guesses the word or word group after a split-second-glimpse; often the eye appears to quickly jump back to check if that guess makes sense. Some researchers attach great importance to the word silhouette: they are convinced that clusters of letters with a prominent outline are easier to recognise. Hence the idea that texts set in all-caps (i.e. without lowercase letters) are less legible. Unfortunately, other tests show no signi ficant differences. It is, however, a fact of daily experience that a long text set in all-caps is not very inviting. While such a text is perfectly legibile – letters and words can be recognized – its readability – the degree to which reading is com- fortable – is limited, which discourages the reader to begin or continue the reading process. fixation point Around the fixation point only four to five letters are seen with 100% acuity. 32–35% 45% 75% 100% 75% 45% 32–35% acuity ↑ A simulation of visual acuity when reading. We can discern fine details only when looking at something with the central part of the retina, the fovea – hence the term ‘foveal vision’. Every thing outside this narrow centre is out of focus. The lower line of text simulates the acuity of vision during one fixation.Although the largest part of the line is optically out of focus, you Roadside joggers endure sweat, pain and angry drivers in the name of tness. A healthy body may seem reward… ↑ Our Latin alphabet has a number of peculiarities that type designers and typographers need to take into account when making and using type. For instance, in the lowercase alphabet, the upper half of most letters is more important to recognition than the lower half. → A text set in a combination of upper- and lowercase is supposed to be more legible because its word silhouettes show greater individuality. never have the impression of a blurred text. This is because the brain assumes that the upper line is not blurred; in other words, our perception is the result of a series of sophisticated corrections. ↓ A visualization of saccadic jumps, based on the article ‘The Science of Word Recognition’, by Microsoft’s legibility specialist Kevin Larson. Note that the eye sometimes jumps back to verify. the top half of the letters is most recognizable the bottom half often leaves you guessing. → → → Typeface anatomy 70 Sans and serif 96–99 Optical size 100
16 competing for attention • directing the reading Reading and seeing 17 Typography and the designer’s role Directing attention Anyone involved in written communication – from an email, a book, packaging, to an entire advertising campaign – is competing for the attention of readers or viewers with thousands of other publications. Information overload has turned us into impatient and sloppy readers. Even a personal e-mail is often not read to the end. Magazines and websites are scanned, not gone through from start to finish. In an ocean of visual messages, smart design can help to attract, hold and direct attention. In older texts on typography and graphic design the word ‘arranging’ often is used to describe what graphic designers do. I like to speak of ‘staging’ because there is more to designing than giving things their proper place. By arranging elements in two or three dimensions, designers also play with the fourth dimension: time. The eye and brain of the reader are invited to watch and read now here, now there. A good designer succeeds in effectively directing and manipulat- ing the reader’s attention. Only in very specific cases is the designer’s task to offer the text in a ‘neutral’ form – to create ‘invisible’ typography. Neutral or invisible typography is useful for texts that tell a linear story that will be read in their entirety, like a novel or essay (→ p 22) . In most other cases, reading is also looking – and therefore a process of scan- ning, searching, selecting, browsing, roaming. A trained designer uses all sorts of tools to influence that process. The typography itself – the style, size and colour of letters, the placement of text on the page – often contributes to the mean- ing (or interpretation) of the text. Terminology Here’s a concise definition of the terms used in this book to denote the main tasks of the trade: ● Graphic design is the staging of texts and images in space and time to direct and hold the reader’s attention. ● Typography originally referred to letterpress printing using metal or wood type. Its most widespread use in English today is to describe those aspects of graphic design that focus on text and type. The word can also be used to describe the way a specific text is organ- ised: “the typography of this book ...’. Purists prefer to reserve the word ‘typography’ for texts made with fonts, and use lettering for all custom-designed texts. ● Type design is designing printing types or fonts. In many French- and Spanish-language publications typography and type design are happily confused; yet in English, German and many other languages typo graphy only means designing with type, not the design of type. A book is more than just a collection of flat pages: it is also an object. If the client is willing to take the extra step, the designer can get to work on the third dimension. The book shown is about the communicative power of packaging. Designer Alex Scholing visualised and commented on the strategies of pack ag ing design by having seductive messages printed on the book’s edge such as ‘Take me’, ‘Love me’. Making reading less smooth It would be a mistake to think the text that can be read easiest and fastest is automatically the text that is read and understood best. Quite the contrary: sometimes the content is read with more attention when the reading is delayed by obstacles deliberately cre- ated for that purpose. Hard Times is a text by the London DJ, producer and author Matt Mason about the challenges of the new age. Inspired by Charles Dickens’ 1854 book, the text was pub- lished on the Penguin Books website as part of the series We Tell Stories. The design by Nicholas Felton (New York) doesn’t make the reading easier but consciously builds in handicaps. The reader is slowed down and becomes more focussed. At times, they are led astray and forced to re-read a certain passage. → → → Modes of reading 20 Book covers 30 Design strategies 142
Page 1: There are millions of well-made and
Page 4 and 5: Everyone who picks up a newspaper,
Page 6 and 7: 6 Introduction 7 Culture, communica
Page 8 and 9: 10 11 Playing with scale: Freitag I
Page 12 and 13: 18 convincing an audience • visua
Page 14 and 15: 22 the form of the book Reading and

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