Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Clemens Théobert Schedler
Austria
DIFFERENTIATING
spaces between columns with similar proportions, and between informational
components within columns—as well as changing vertical positioning—keeps positive and neg-
ative areas proportionally unified but easily distinguishable from each other.
Helmut Schmid
Japan
Distinction and Unity
The visual and perceptual aspects of grouping and differentiat-
ing, discussed in a formal context in
Chapter 1
(page 74), are therefore extremely im-
portant considerations when developing a typographic hierarchy. Just as viewers will
assume that abstract shapes that share similar attributes are related to each other, view-
ers will also assume text elements with similar treatment to be related. At the same
time, all the components within a hierarchy must respond to each other's visual qual-
ities. Readers acknowledge minute changes in typographic quality—hence, the focus
on achieving a uniform texture in running text to avoid optical fixation—but too much
difference among hierarchic levels creates a visual disconnect: the danger of pushing
stylistic differences between informational components is that, as a totality, the typo-
graphy—indeed, the entire project—will appear busy and lack a fundamental cohesion
or “visual voice.” This is one reason why designers are admonished to employ only
two or three type styles in a project and, as often as possible, to combine styles that
share qualities such as proportion, weight, terminal shape, and so on. The reader need
not be hit over the head with an optical baseball bat every time the content requires dif-
ferentiation. Because minute changes in type quality are so easily recognized, the reader
need only be shown an appreciable, yet decisive, difference among hierarchic compon-
ents to clue them in. Limiting the degree of stylistic difference to just what is needed
