Typography

Typography is the way text is presented and arranged within a page. Typography includes factors such as; font, colour and spacing. Typography is very important when it comes to designing and producing a magazine, because the font style, font size and font colour can determine whether someone decides to buy or not to buy the magazine. When producing the magazine you need to make sure that the font is easy and clear to read at arms length, you also need to make sure that the colours don't contrast with other colours on the page because otherwise it will be difficult to read and people will be less likely to buy it.

The most common typography fonts used for magazines are Serif and San Serif. Serif fonts make distinctive shapes, using small decorative lines on the end of certain strokes. Popular examples of  Serif fonts, are Georgia, Century, Times New Roman and Book Antigua. San Serif fonts do not use small decorative lines at the end of strokes. Popular examples of San Serif fonts, are Arial, Calibri, Lucida Sans and Verdana. According to multiple studies, most people find San Serif fonts harder to read than Serif fonts. Because of this San Serifs fonts are usually used for smaller amounts of text such as captions or headlines.

Kerning is also an important feature of typography. Kerning refers to adjusting the space between characters, so that the font is in proportion which creates a visually pleasing structure to the text. Kerning helps to make certain letters combinations look better, for example MW, WA VA, and TA. A lack of kerning can result in difficulty to read groups of text or articles. 

From analysing magazines I have realised how much of an important role typography has in the overall look and effect of the magazine. If the magazine has poor typography it will make the magazine look less aesthetically pleasing to the reader/audience, this will therefore effect the magazine negatively because less copies are likely to be sold. However if the magazine has good typography the magazine will look aesthetically pleasing and will have fluency which means that more copies are likely to be sold.

When designing and producing my music magazine I will pay close attention to how I structure my typography. I will make sure that I use San Serif fonts for large titles so that they are easy to read. I will also ensure that I sure appropriate kerning so that large amounts of text and titles are clear and easy to read.