Changing Media, Changing Type

At different points in A Better Message, I have commented and will comment on how changes in communication technology have impacted our ability to get a message across – for better or worse. Each medium presents its own advantages and challenges. The number of available of communication media is increasing, and enables knowledgeable communicators to select more options for effective transfer of meaning than ever before.

Amid all this change, one topic that might not be at the forefront of our thoughts is Typography. If we take a minute to think about it, it seems almost obvious that the type style selected helps make the message, providing a visual/emotional context for meaning of our words. However, it may be that we seldom stop and think about the impact that typeface has on the many messages we read every day. And to the extent that our daily activities now have us authoring messages, we may rarely think about the impact of type at the times when it might be most beneficial to do so.

In reality, there are several limitations imposed on our selection of typeface. Depending on the message and medium, our reasonable choices are often limited by circumstance. Are you writing for your company something that will actually be printed on paper? Use the standard fonts in the company Style Guide. Want to get creative in that Word doc you are going to email to a client? You’d better be sure that she has the same font loaded on her machine before you hit “Send”, or else it may be read in something like Courier. Want to get fancy on that website? Better make sure that it can be rendered well on most screens by most browsers. Better yet, stick to something mainstream, like Arial, Verdana, or Helvetica.

Notice that the latter issues are all within the realm of digital communications. That’s because more and more of our communications are being shifted from print to digital media. And those suggestions I made about sticking with the tried and true typefaces . . . they are the defaults used in most web browsers. It turns out that some fonts are easier to read on paper, while some work best on screens. The three fonts I mentioned are sans serif fonts, which work best for screen-read text. And although they work well, they are not as warm or elegant as the serif fonts typically used for printed text.

Well, we are not the only ones who have noticed that the environment in which we read is going digital. While it is true that many traditional typefaces do not render well on computer screens, not everyone believes that sans serif fonts need to look and “feel” Spartan. When Microsoft introduced Office 2007, it also introduced several new ClearType fonts, partly to foster easier reading of digitally-rendered type. One of those fonts is Constantia, a font that is designed to read well on-screen, and look good on paper, too. However, the one I have been using for a while is Calibri, which I believe is the default font in certain recent Microsoft applications.

I’ll fill you in on little secret. Calibri didn’t get to be one of my favorites because of my extensive analysis of fonts or because of my vast expertise (ahem!) in Typography. Rather, when working on my resume a couple of years ago, I stumbled across it in my MS Word program. I liked it instantly. Calibri is simple and to the point, like many other sans serif fonts, but this one seems a little . . . well . . . warmer and easier to read. "Hmmm . . . Why is that,” you ask? Let’s take a look.

IS IT LEGIBLE?

One simple test to assess text legibility, the degree to which letters are recognizable, is to cover either the bottom or top half of a line of text and see if you can read it. If you can read the sentence, the text is likely to be considered legible. To try this out, I compared three lines of 10 pt. text (from top to bottom using Arial, Calibri, and Times New Roman).



Ok, so I picked three fonts that are all considered very legible, primarily because Arial and Times New Roman are very popular sans serif and serif fonts. But I found it easy to make out the sentence, “Think about how children and seniors differ in their behavior, disposition, interests and intellect." I hope you could also. Truth be told, I didn’t see any major legibility faux pas here, so our conclusions regarding legibility differences between these three fonts may be subject to our own preferences. But I think Calibri edges out the other two fonts in this test, because we are looking at this on a screen, the text is a few words, and Calibri has a little less character mass with a little more space between the characters. I wonder if our collective opinions would change if we saw the same three on paper?

IS IT EASY TO READ?

Readability, the ability to easily read text set in a specified typeface, results from several factors in typeface design. One of those factors is character spacing. To compare the amounts of character spacing, see below:



In this instance, you can see that Times New Roman and Calibri have about the same horizontal spacing. Arial is wider, but the characters do not seem to be spaced, in relative terms, as far apart. In my opinion, Arial is hardest to read, and it seems related to the relatively close spacing between the rather wide letters. Calibri, on the other hand, seems to have a bit more space between its characters than Times New Roman, and the overall character mass is less than Arial. This gives Calibri more white space (or, in this case, black space) within and between characters, as well as vertically between the lines of text.

Another factor affecting readability is x-height, the base height of lower case letters, discounting any ascenders or descenders on the characters. Typefaces with larger x-heights are reported to be easier to read. The balance of white space also matters – all other factors being equal, more white space can be found in type with larger x-heights, which makes text easier to comprehend. To compare x-heights, I again placed the three fonts together for evaluation. The relative height differences can be seen below:



All three of these typefaces are regarded as having relatively large x-heights. It seems that Arial is largest, but, again, it also has the widest characters. The x-heights of Calibri and Times New Roman are similar, with Calibri being just a bit higher.

SO WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT CALIBRI?

In my opinion, there are two characteristic about Calibri that are striking. One is that it has “soft edges”. Calibri is rendered differently on the screen because of a technique related to aliasing, the treatment of pixels used to compose digital images. The end result gives Calibri a less defined edge to its lines, imparting a warmer color to this than seen in other sans serif typeface.

Another factor I noticed was the use of changing line weights in Calibri. It is not as pronounced as that seen in Times New Roman, but is more pronounced than that in Arial, and perhaps the other mainstream sans-serif typefaces. Even though Calibri is a sans serif font, its line weights make it seem as though it is somewhat closer in style to some serif fonts. This can be seen in the top curve of lowercase h’s or the curves in the letter m. The result is a text that is slightly more elegant and still quite readable.



Finally, Calibri has some rounded elements that give it more personality. The lines in each character have bowed ends and rounded corners. The rounded line ends are seen in the feet of the R. End curves in the text tend to be even, using a bit larger than normal radii – see the base of a lower case t, for example. Again, from left to right, the typeface is Arial, Calibri, then Times New Roman.



So here it is. Communication is changing in ways that are even affecting how text is presented, read and understood. To accommodate these changes, typography is also changing to maintain functionality in the new media. Traditionally, serif fonts, like Times New Roman, have worked best for long printed passages. In Calibri, we see some elements that are often used in serif fonts, making it more readable while still being screen-friendly.

As a new font for digital media, Calibri has been well received – see a review here and a somewhat more technical read here. And as for me, I’ll be happy to use Calibri in more documents . . . as soon as I know my recipients’ machines are also similarly equipped.