Figure 2:
The General Aspects of Typography

Language manifests itself in two forms: speech and writing. In our area of interest here, writing (print), one has to distinguish between form and message content. Form refers to the characters that have been arranged in a certain way. Content refers to the message that the author wants to communicate to the reader through its form. Content is the responsibility of the author and form is the responsibility of the typographer. As can be seen in figure 2, in the form of print we can distinguish between the actual shape of type and the way it is arranged.

With regard to the shape of a typeface, two kinds of properties should be distinguished: functional and semantic properties. This distinction is made by Bartram (1982) to show the presence of two levels of communication in print.

The functional properties of type are those which allow the characters to be identified as a letter. Figure 3 shows the features which compose those functional properties. These features are: general shape, case, boldness, and size. These terms will each be defined and discussed separately in chapter 2. In this chapter, an overview will be presented of assumptions, practices and scientific research with regard to the functional properties of type.

Figure 3:
Aspects of Typography: The Functional Properties of Type

Apart from typeface shape, there are a number of other aspects of typography that affect the reading of text. These aspects relate to the use of space and the composition of letters. Although textual organization is not a property of a typeface, these aspects can have an impact on the appropriateness of a typeface. Therefore, the typographic aspects that have to do with organization will be discussed in chapter 3. Figure 4 shows all these spatial features of text: letter spacing, word spacing, alignment, line width, and leading.

Figure 4:
Aspects of Typography: The Organization of Text

The semantic properties of type belong to an area that needs to be distinguished from the aspects presented in the other chapters because of its more speculative and subjective nature. Semantic properties can be discussed only after the basic properties of text have been dealt with. Whereas the functional properties of type require that the reader identifies words and knows their meaning, the semantic properties require that the reader extracts information from the characters’ shapes in addition to the message content. The specific shape of a typeface may elicit an emotional or cognitive reaction in the reader; a sense of mood, personality or beauty. In this way, type can provide more meaning than that which the author has control over in his choice of words. The different kinds of meaning that can be distinguished are shown in figure 5 and will be described in chapter 4.

Figure 5:
Aspects of Typography: The Semantic Properties of Type