Type and Examples

Type family

A type family is a group of fonts for one typeface (see picture). So you can have bold, italic and many more including in one 'family'. 

The example picture is of the typeface 'Frutiger' and it's many versions and fonts, which makes a type family.

Kerning and Tracking

Kerning and tracking are quite similar as it's to do with spacing between letters,  but the type of spacing is different.

For instance, tracking is the space between the letters in a word (and this spacing is equal). However, kerning is where the letters overlap so it isn't uneven between letters. Here's an example:


http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/2606/difference-between-kerning-vs-letter-spacing

The 'VA' under the kerning example are actually overlapping each other, whereas in the first picture the V and A are unevenly spaced.

How to do this on InDesign?

It's simple, really (well, when you get the hang of it).

https://99designs.com/designer-blog/2014/01/20/11-kerning-tips/

This is a great example, and it shows you the content you need in the 'Character' box, which should show up when you form a text box.

In this example, it shows you where kerning and tracking is used and how to control it. However, it also shows you how to control leading in the same toolbox - but what is leading?

Leading is the distance between the first line's bottom 'x line' and the next line's bottom 'x line'. An x line is like I presented to you earlier (to be put in). You can control this - again - in the character tool box in InDesign.

Magazine Examples

The first magazine article I picked was one that varies with kerning, leading and tracking. In the title, 'projects' the J is actually overlapping the O slightly and there is very tight tracking (little space between the letters). The leading varies, also, as in the title and sub-title there is a bigger gap between the 'x' bottom lines, than compared to the actual content of the article. This seems to have been done so that you can tell there's a lot of information in the article.

Finally, the writer has used serif which shows you this is a printed piece of work rather than online.







My next example, I decided to do an article with contains an interview to see the differences in type.


Here, there is more variety in the type family used. For instance, there are some lines throughout used in bold, and some in the original typeface. This is done so by questions can stand out from the answers. Due to poor quality of the photo you can't see any italics, but there is italics on some words where the interviewee must've put emphasis on the word, so that the tone of the interviewee comes across on paper.

There's not much variety on leading or tracking here, but there's a huge contrast of kerning, between the content and title in the article and the 'Q&A' sign in red in the top-left corner. This gives a nice effect on the overall page, and makes it seem less 'robotic'. I could include how the red also matches the interviewee's hair - but I won't go into that.

Again, the writer has put the font in serif - which shows it's a printed article.

The Grid

Finally, there's the explanation of the grid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_(graphic_design)

To the left is an example of a grid - which is used in graphic design to create a layout for articles, leaflets, etc. which can be read with ease and can be exciting.

In this example, the white lines represent the grid lines which helped the graphic designer to put this flyer together.

In this example, the grid creates a sense of symmetry, which is aesthetically pleasant (attractive to the eye). You can also see that the information being shown is laid out evenly and is brief and to-the-point. This makes it easier for the reader to get the most important information from the flyer as quickly as possible.

Creating a grid in Indesign, however, isn't as easy a first. Firstly, you go to create a new document in the software.

Next, you have to sort out the page size, and adjust it to what size you want/need.

You can select the number of pages you want, the width, height and size. After you've adjusted those settings, you can continue to adjust the leading of the text and the margins.

To create margins, you will need to do a bit of maths (if you want a certain layout, anyway). For every column you need a gutter (a small space in between each column).

Here, in the margins and columns settings, you can set the width of the gutters and the size of the columns - and of course how many columns there are.

Source: https://medium.com/@flobin/creating-a-baseline-grid-in-indesign-df0139e290ac